Affaire de Coeur
by Lady Silvamord
Summary: Affaire de Coeur: affair of the heart. Not here, exactly, nor anywhere too far away, instances in the lives of two very different people. Drabble series. [30: the last chapter.]
1. i: cold hands, cold feet

**Title: **Affaire de Coeur

**Author: **Lady Silvamord

**Rating: **PG - PG-13

**Summary: **Affaire de Coeur: affair of the heart; love affair. Not here, exactly, nor anywhere too far away, instances in the lives of two very different people. Neji and Sakura; drabble series.

**Comments: **Written for the 30romances community on LJ. I'm still waiting for them to accept my claim, but in the meantime, I just wanted to see what y'all think. All of these will be set sometime in the future, and this one has no spoilers.

-

_Affaire de Coeur: n, v; affair of the heart; love affair. Not here, exactly, nor anywhere too far away, instances in the lives of two very different people. Neji and Sakura; drabble series. _

I: _cold hands; cold feet_

The first thing that Sakura notices about Neji's hands is that they are as cold as death. His arms are covered with gashes, ripping through tendon and muscle, through delicate tissue, until she can see slivers of his bones beneath them. The bandages covering them are soaked with blood.

"Critical ward. Immediately," she snaps at the nearest apprentice. She pulls on a pair of gloves, feeling the familiar tingle on the back of her neck. Sakura remembers his pale face, and promises herself with grim resolve, that she will heal him.

A few days later, as he comes out of his anesthetic-induced sleep, Neji wakes to Sakura holding his hand. It feels warm in his. Burning.

Her eyes widen slightly when she sees his open. "You're awake," she says quickly, bandaging his wrist. "I'm glad—I wanted to tell you how tired I am of seeing you here."

Neji releases her hand, not before giving the tips a light, experimental squeeze. He is startled to realize that he can feel his hands again. "Nice to see you too, Haruno."

Sakura gives him a small smile, before resting her hand on his forehead, and the last thing that Neji sees before he sleeps are her worried green eyes.

-

Part one out of thirty. More to come soon--I've done eleven already. Comments appreciated!


	2. ii: trickery, magic

II: _trickery, magic _

_-_

Sakura's eyes narrow as she scans the clearing. It is deathly quiet, save for the rustling of the wind in the treetops.

There.

The barest flicker of light; one leaf out of place.

Lightning fast, she pulls out a shuriken, aims, and it whistles through the air with deadly accuracy. A hidden net explodes in a moment, trapping Neji in it, and he dangles from the branch helplessly, struggling.

Sakura laughs, putting her hands on her hips. "Hey, Hyuuga," she calls mockingly. "Not as fast as you think you are, hmm?"

A slight breeze ruffles her hair and something pulls the ends back, baring her neck. Fingers press against her back, her sides, the base of her neck, and Sakura suddenly finds that she is unable to stand or move her arms. The razor edge of a kunai rests on her throat.

Neji holds her steady, a predatory smirk on his face, as he brushes the tip against her throat. "Now, Haruno, what were you saying?"

He releases her about a moment after she can stand again, and she throws a resentful glance at the log inside the net. "You win, Hyuuga."

"As I always do." He sheathes the kunai. "Ichiraku?"

Sakura nods as she rubs her neck. When she looks up again, he's walking away. She shoots a somewhat envious look at his back.

"Coming?" Neji calls, without looking back. "I think some ramen should soothe your wounded pride."

"It always does," Sakura retorts, before running to catch up to him.

-

Thoughts?

and no, Neji was not considering feeling Sakura up. -grin-


	3. iii: so not funny, sarcasm

III: _so not funny; sarcasm_

-

"Would it kill you not to be so sarcastic?" she asks him, as she brushes his hair one night, discreetly examining his shoulder wound.

Neji considers it for a moment. "Yes."

Sakura tugs at a knot a little harder than necessary. "See what I mean? I bet you couldn't go one day without ruining somebody else's."

"Why, Haruno, I had no idea you cared," he deadpans.

A long pause.

"I can braid your hair, and there will be nothing you can do about it. I can braid your hair and tie it with several pink ribbons, and you will be absolutely helpless."

They glare at each other for a few long moments. "…That is so not funny," he mutters, at last. "That is also abusing your position as my medic."

Sakura smirks. "Quiet, Hyuuga. Eat your potatoes like the good patient you are. Oh, yes, I forgot-I have to feed you."

Neji closes his eyes, feeling a painful headache coming on, and tells himself that destiny has been particularly cruel to him.

-

Not as cruel as you think, oh darling Neji. Review?


	4. iv: think pink, blow

_IV: think pink; blow_

-

Neji has a cold.

"Blow."

He refuses. "I can do it myself," he mutters, sounding congested. "Let _go_ of the tissue, woman. I don't need you waving that in my face."

Sakura is tempted to injure him, but realizes that if she does, he will probably remain in the hospital for a longer time, and she really doesn't need that.

"You're going to drip all over the place if you don't blow your nose," she points out mildly. "It'll be disgusting. You won't be able to eat properly. You might make yourself sicker. And," Sakura pauses, for dramatic effect. "If you get visitors, do you really want them to see you all snotty and sniveling because you're not brave enough to--"

"Just do it," interrupts Neji, feeling pained.

Feeling victorious, Sakura moves behind him, placing an arm around his shoulders for balance, and covers his nose with the tissue gently. A few locks of her very pink hair escape her loose bun and fall over Neji's shoulder, in sharp contrast to his dark hair. It smells like strawberry.

"Blow," she instructs.

Neji does so, before settling back against the pillows again, convinced that he has lost his last scrap of pride to the beaming woman who stands next to him.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Sakura asks playfully.

Neji pretends to sleep, and she smiles, before pulling the covers up to his chin.

-

Heh. If I could draw worth beans, I'd fanart that.

Thoughts?


	5. v: analysis, collection

-

V: _analysis, collection_

Neji meets her in the woods for another sparring session. He's a few minutes late—completely uncharacteristic of him, so Sakura is naturally curious.

He appears in the second it takes her to blink. "I apologize for my lateness," he says in a monotone, before stretching and trying to cover a yawn.

In response to her inquisitive look, he rotates his neck slightly. "Hanabi's birthday," he says, by way of explanation. "The celebrations lasted a little longer than I expected."

"Ah. How old is she?"

"Thirteen, now. I brought something for you."

Sakura blinks; stunned by the sudden change in subject, and the direction their conversation had taken. Neji pulls out a small box and puts it in her hand.

She opens it with slightly shaking fingers. Inside, she finds tiny silk fans in every color imaginable—the kinds distributed at a girl's birthday party. "N-Neji, I…" she trails off, so amazed that she forgets to address him as she usually does.

That fact doesn't miss him, and he smirks a little, although it is one of his more humane smirks. "Don't stutter, _Sakura,_ it doesn't suit you. You collect them. We both know that."

"We do?"

Neji sighs. "Yes, _we _do. Put your trinkets away and grab some shuriken."

He is more than a little startled when she wraps her arms around him lightly. "Thank you…Neji—Hyuuga—um…thank you."

Neji watches her walk toward the bag of weapons, her hair swaying lightly in the breeze. "Anytime."

-

They will get longer, I promise, starting with next chapter. Thank you to everybody who reviewed!

Thoughts?


	6. vi: rush, thrill, exhilaration

VI: _rush; thrill; exhilaration_

_-_

Flying through the treetops, pushing off on branches, feeling the comforting tingle of the chakra that is centered in her feet is one of the greatest exhilarations of Sakura's life.

The air is sharp and cold, and each gust is like a slap against her face. It brings tears to her eyes, spurring her on at the times when she feels like she needs to stop and rest.

But then she catches a glimpse of Neji, out of the corner of her eye. His gaze is transfixed on the route, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Taking a deep breath and directing some more chakra toward her feet, Sakura speeds up a little, despite the protests of her aching legs.

After an hour, Neji sneaks a look at her. She is pale, but seems determined to match his pace exactly. "Haruno…are you trying to race me?"

"Of course not!" she squeaks, narrowly avoiding getting her boot caught in a deserted nest.

"Oh, but I think you are," he replies, amused.

Within a moment, he's disappeared.

Sakura freezes, utterly frustrated. She feels like screaming his name and ordering that he get back here right this instant, or, better yet, chasing him down and make him sorry…

"Damn your mind games, Hyuuga Neji," she mutters. "I hope you freeze to a stump—"

And then she's flying.

More accurately, his arm is wrapped around her waist, holding her like a doll, as they hop from branch to branch. "I choose not to hear your previous statement, Haruno. It's only because of the Godaime's orders that I keep you safe that I don't drop you where you are."

"I can do it myself," Sakura protests weakly. Neji's jacket is _warm. _

"You'll slow us down."

"…Fine, then."

They continue in silence, and Sakura takes the opportunity to rest. As she looks at the snow-covered ground below, she wonders which is the more thrilling—the Fire Country in winter, or the admittedly exhilarating feeling of having Neji carry her.

-

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. It means a lotto me. -grin-

Thoughts?


	7. vii: search, dictionary

VII: _dictionary, search_

_-_

"Maybe you should go," Neji tells her softly, in a break in their training. "You know him best."

"No," Sakura laughs, a little bitterly. "I _knew _him. I don't know who he is now." A pause. "I don't know if I want to know."

"You gave up on him." Neji states bluntly, to cover up his surprise.

"No. I…don't know. Are you going?"

"Yes. They need me."

Sakura sighs. "Then I'm going too."

Neji raises an eyebrow. "What brings about the sudden change of heart?"

"You need me," she retorts. "If you get hurt and I'm not around to fix you up, who will?"

Neji allows himself to pat her hand lightly, and she leans against him as they watch the sun set.

-

They're talking about Sasuke. And I feel sorry for Sakura - facing a relic of the past like that. A tidbit - the details about what went on in this mission (gone wrong, but that's another story) are going to be entailed in a future drabble.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. -grin-

thoughts appreciated!


	8. viii: mission possible

VIII: _mission possible_

_-_

"Don't jerk away from me," Neji hisses into her ear.

"Sorry!" she says quickly. "It's just…weird…"

But she lets Neji take her hand anyway. Her hand is warm and his is cool. Neji's got a tendency to grip her fingers a bit convulsively, and Sakura tries not to wince.

They make a pretty believable couple, Sakura thinks (hopes), even if they aren't all over each other. For the sake of the mission only, she reaches out and wraps one arm around his waist.

The Hyuuga twitches.

"What _now_?"

"Sakura, I'm the one that's supposed to do that."

"Why?"

His response is to slide her arm away and wrap one around _her _waist, a little possessively. Sakura exhales slowly. "Men."

They pass a flower vendor, and the elderly man asks Neji if he would like a flower for his lovely young wife. Neji manages to stifle his initial pained reaction, ends up showing the vendor his variation of a happy face, and buys Sakura a few sweet-smelling lilies that she promptly fastens in her hair.

As they walk away, Sakura leans close and squeezes his hand with a mischievous grin. "Maybe we can make this work, after all."

Neji tries to mimic it, but what comes out instead is a surprisingly shy smile, and Sakura thinks she likes it much better than his smirk.

-

Thank you _so_ much to everyone who reviewed. -smile-


	9. ix: gargoyle

-

IX: _gargoyle_

On their way to the hotel they've been assigned to stay at, Sakura stops dead in the middle of a crowded street. Neji walks forward, and almost pitches himself on the face.

"Sakura," he hisses. "What is it? Genma is expecting us by nine."

She nods up at the rooftop of an elaborate building. For a moment he doesn't know what she sees. Then the moon comes out from behind a cloud, illuminating what Sakura sees, in bits and pieces. Slivers of sharp teeth, icy white marble, a leering mouth, snarling eyes.

"They're so…ugly…" she murmurs.

Neji stares. He finds the creatures fascinating, in a way, but she slips her small hand in his and begins to pull him away. The moonlight shines on the gargoyles, and the three that are facing their direction are lit from the back, menacing silhouettes in the night.

Neji turns away, before putting an arm around his companion protectively, telling himself that it's only for the sake of the other people in the street. The lilies in her hair are beginning to wilt. She leans into him, feeling the soft warmth of his flak jacket against her bare upper arms. His breath, deep and even, ruffles her hair ever so slightly.

Sakura tilts her head up and realizes that in those few moments, she's completely forgotten the mission. The Kakashi voice in her head begins to chide her, and she imagines Tsunade shaking her head disapprovingly. "The hotel's this way," she tells Neji, and promises herself that she won't let that happen again.

Her renewed devotion to the mission, however, doesn't stop Sakura from walking so close to him, though. It is for the sake of believability, after all.

-

Yeah, Sakura. Right. You keep telling yourself that.

Well, next chapter is going to be a big one. Expect shameless, _shameless_, Neji/Sakura fluff including a party and a game of poker.


	10. x: heads or tails, you lose

X: _heads or tails, you lose_

-

"Face it, Sakura," Naruto crows. "You _lose. _You've _lost. _There is no hope."

Beside him, Hinata giggles softly. Kiba is fairly rolling around with laughter, Ino and Tenten are giggling, Shikamaruand Choji both look highly amused,and even the usually stoic Aburame Shino's eyes are crinkled, as if he's smiling beneath his high collar.

Hyuuga Neji himself is sitting across the table, face as expressionless as usual.

Sakura sneaks a look at him, and panics to herself. "One more roll, please!"

"No can do," sniggers Ino. "Heads or tails, you lose."

"It could be worse," Naruto puts in. "You might have had to kiss dog-breath over there."

Kiba looks as if he's trying to suppress a growl.

Sakura sighs, rubbing her forehead. She _knew _she shouldn't have listened to Naruto's idea of _game night _at Shikamaru's place.

After a few minutes, she finds herself alone with Neji. Kiba's the last to leave the room, and he flicks off all the lights but one. He gives the couple a wolfish smile. "Have a good time, now."

Neji glares. Sakura blushes.

"It could be worse, Hyuuga," calls Shikamaru, from outside the hallway. "Sakura's not too troublesome, after all—"

The door shuts.

"Um," Sakura offers. She's blushing so hotly that she'd think her face was generating heat. She's been kissed before, but it had been completely different. It was _Temari; _damn it, and she usually tries to forget about that.

Neji gives her a quizzical look. "This isn't your first kiss, is it?"

"No. Second," she adds, before she can stop herself.

Neji is surprised to feel a little curious about the identity of her first kisser, but something tells him that he probably doesn't want to know. "Well, then."

Their faces are mere inches from each other. To both of their surprise, Sakura leans up and presses her lips against his first. She feels his surprise, but after a few moments, his hands find hers as he kisses back, gently. Her cheek brushes against his long, loose hair as he pulls her closer…

Before the two even pull apart, the lights flare back on, and the other eight members of their party tumble in the door, the boys whistling, and the girls squealing.

"Hyuuga, you _kiss_!" exclaims Kiba. "You're human! Who knows what else you're capable of!"

Choji presses two pink heart-shaped cookies into their hands, and Shino is the last to approach them. He wordlessly opens his palm, and a pink butterfly flutters out, circling Sakura and Neji, and finally landing on Neji's shoulder.

Later, Ino still hasn't stopped teasing them. "I don't think you've ever been so happy to lose, Sakura," she laughs.

The medic-nin looks across at Neji, who's busying himself cleaning up Naruto and Kiba's dinner table mess. "I don't think I lost, Ino," Sakura replies flirtatiously. "I think I just won."

-

Dude, if that's what goes down during game night at Shikamaru's, count me in!

Although, gosh. Poor Neji and Sakura, having their moment interrupted by overly-enthusiastic friends. They should have opted for a secluded closet instead. Kidding…kidding…I think.

Next chapter – aftermath of the kiss.


	11. xi: take a hint

XI: _take a hint_

_-_

Things had been extremely normal between them, the day after game night at Shikamaru's. They met in the clearing at ten in the morning, and Neji greeted the few-minutes-late Sakura as he always did. Sakura wasn't exactly sure what to do, blushing and stammering good morning to her elder…what was it, now? Training partner, still? Comrade? Friend? Or…something more?

Aside from Neji actually giving her a few seconds' warning before beginning to attack her, and Sakura actually missing him with one of her most basic weapons techniques (which had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he had caught her around the waist a few minutes earlier, pressing them close together, before telling her not to leave her weak spots open while she was attacking), they acted as if they always had.

As if they hadn't shared a very pleasant kiss the night before.

_Stupid Neji, _Sakura finds herself thinking, wiping her wrist across her sweaty forehead. He has disappeared into the clearing in her moment of distraction, and she knows that he is somewhere around her, waiting, watching, with his pearly eyes missing nothing.

Her heartbeat speeds up ever so slightly. She feels his presence. Feels his Byakugan trained upon her.

Sakura spins around as quickly as she can, lifting her kunai.

One of his hands shoots out and grabs her wrist, not hard enough for it to be completely painful, but enough to immobilize her. "Too slow," Neji points out evenly.

Sakura glares, and he releases her. They gaze at each other for a few moments. "…You've been distracted today," he says mildly.

Normally, Sakura can take a lot from even the most frustrating of people. But today, she snaps. "Take a hint, Neji!"

His shell of perfect composure cracks for a moment, and he looks a bit startled. "…Last night, I suppose?"

"We kissed," she accuses.

"Yes, we did." Neji observes the glaring girl. Her pink hair is in disarray, and she runs her fingers through it, irate, making it stand on end even more. "It was…" he finds himself struggling for words. He's only ever kissed Hinata before, and that was a rather awkward experience. It had been like kissing his sister, or something of that sort. He wouldn't know. Except for the knowledge that kissing Sakura had been _very _different.

His first instinct is to reach out and take her hand. She blinks, and her hand stiffens, but she clutches at his fingers before he can pull away.

Something detached inside him wonders at the fact that he's standing in a clearing with the young woman who regularly patches him up after missions, after _kissing _her last night, and is currently playing an odd variation of hand-grabbing with her.

His life has taken a few very interesting turns in the year and a half he's known her.

"Hint taken," Neji says.

"And…um…that means?"

Neji takes a step toward the other side of the clearing, gently pulling her along with him. "It means…would you care to go out for coffee?"

The latter part of his sentence comes out somewhat rushed, and Sakura blinks, before piecing together what he said. A somewhat uncertain, yet pleased, smile flickers across her face. "How about ice cream, instead? It's a bit warm for coffee."

"All right," Neji says. Ice cream. When has he last eaten ice cream?

They walk out of the clearing together in comfortable silence, despite the loud cheers of Inner Sakura, almost holding hands.

-

Thanks to everyone who reviewed. -grin-

I'd like to take this opportunity to insert the obligatory "aww!" for this bit of Neji and Sakura interaction, because they are really just that cute.


	12. xii: on top

**Note:** This chapter is set during the chapters regarding Neji and Sakura's undercover mission. Thanks to everybody for their very kind reviews. -grin-

-

XII: _crème de la crème; on top_

The first thing Neji notices when he wakes up is a surplus of pink. Too much to be natural or healthy. A surplus of pink, and the vague scent of strawberries. He figures out the origin of the pink soon enough, and links it to the warm, soft weight on his chest.

"Sakura."

"Mmm?" she mumbles back, half-conscious. Her bright green eyes struggle to open, and meet Neji's white ones uncomprehendingly.

The mission leader waits for everything to sink in.

When it does, Sakura squeaks and falls off of him. "S-sorry," she mumbles. "I didn't _mean _to get on top of you, seriously—"

"No need to apologize," he deadpans. "It's only the fourth time this week, after all." Sitting up, he swipes his hand against his eyes almost irritably. It had been a late night—they'd been up until two in the morning trailing those two shinobi from Mist, the ones who were lieutenants to Akatsuki. Sakura had stumbled into bed as soon as they had made it back to the room. Neji had attempted to stay up a bit later to write a report to the Godaime. He had made it through fifteen minutes before succumbing to the temptations of the soft bed and warm covers, much to his self-disgust.

Genma had secured a nice suite for them, as expected. But Genma, being Genma, had decided to give them the honeymoon suite, complete with gigantic double bed, canopy, and extravagant silk bedcovers. After the initial few moments of awkwardness, Neji had taken charge, dissuaded Sakura from her initial plan to sleep on the sofa, and assigned them both separate sides of the bed.

The arrangement had worked well enough in the first week.

Sakura flops down on the pillow, sighing heavily. She doesn't know why she ended up on top of Neji again. She never does. She just wakes up to find him gazing at her patiently. The medic-nin sighs again.

Neji cracks an eye open. "That's annoying," he states matter-of-factly. "I already told you it was all right. Now stop moping."

She turns and glares at him. "I'm not _moping._"

"Ah."

"I…um…"

"What?"

"I was just feeling glad that I haven't been sleeping next to Morino Ibiki or Kakashi-senpai or…Kiba…or somebody…" Sakura trails off, trying to stifle a shudder.

Neji rotates the shoulder with the old injury, scowling.

Sakura forgets her sleeping arrangement woes, and reaches up, a little tentatively, to put her small hand on her companion's shoulder. "It's still hurting you, isn't it?"

His brow creases. "It's been a little over two months since I was in the hospital. Shizune said that it should be healed within a month and a half."

"_If _you didn't exert it," she counters, centering her chakra in her hands. Waves of heat move from her hand to his shoulder, loosening the knotted muscles and tendons, and soothing the healing bones. "One of them is still a little tender," Sakura tells him, frowning with concentration. "It's healing well, though. It should stop giving you pain within a few days."

After she lets go of him, straightening the sleeves of her pale blue sleeping shirt, Neji looks away. "Thank you."

"Anything for my favorite patient," she replies lightly.

The Hyuuga slides out of bed, ignoring the protests of his exhausted muscles. A hot shower will take care of that. And it might wash the remnants of Sakura's perfume away from his skin.

As if knowing the direction his thoughts had taken, Sakura fidgets a little. "Sorry," she says again, quietly. "It's a habit, I think. I'll try to stop." Inwardly, she winces, not wanting him to think her weak.

Without turning back, he reaches back to rub his neck. "When my old team was on missions, Lee and Tenten would get the bed, and Gai-senpai and I would sleep on the floor. Lee and Tenten would always wake up spooned together. It's not weakness, merely human instinct."

Neji heads in the direction of the bathroom, leaving Sakura staring at him. It isn't often that he discloses personal information like that.

Another realization hits her, and this one makes her blush. Lee and Tenten are _engaged. _

Sakura shrugs the thought away, almost wanting to laugh at her own foolishness. It isn't as if she and Neji are going to start a relationship, just because of a few nights of sleeping in close proximity.

The pink-haired kuinoichi snuggles back down under the covers, willing herself to sleep her ridiculous thoughts away.

-

(and then, naturally, she dreams of Neji doing the Jack Sparrow walk, clad only in a pair of lime green boxers. Yeah. I'd like some of that, please.)


	13. xiii: garden vista

**Note: **Thanks to everyone who reviewed XD. This chapter is set in the aftermath of Neji and Sakura's undercover mission.

-

XIII: _garden vista_

Sakura's hospital room has a view of the Academy gardens. When she opens her eyes, she sees flowers everywhere. From the window, and she remembers picking flowers with Ino when they were young. From the table near her bedside, and she remembers that she had done the same thing for Kakashi-sensei in the Wave Country. She had done the same thing for Naruto, except with fewer flowers. He was allergic to cosmos.

She had never gotten flowers for Sasuke. It had always been peeled apples for him.

Turning around on the narrow bed, she opens her eyes, and struggles to keep them open. She is faced with a pair of familiar white eyes.

"Neji?" she coughs. "Why are you up?"

"Because, this time, _I _wasn't the one injured," he replies succinctly. "This time, I'm not the one lying helplessly in a hospital bed, completely dependent—"

Sakura groans, burying her head in the pillow as the memories of the last evening of their mission return. "Rub it in, why don't you?"

Silence. A sigh, which she takes as an apology. "Complete role-reversal. It's nice not to have you as _my _medic for once."

"Oh, thank you, _Grumpy._"

The jounin winces. "Neji."

"Neji," she concedes, rubbing her eyes. "They sting. You're blurry."

"The Mist renegade hit you with a temporary blindness jutsu, along with the injuries sustained in the fight. Kotetsu gave you an antidote, but he told me that it might be a couple of days until you see properly again."

Sakura is silent. Her fingers clench the pale blankets in frustration. Finally, she knows how Neji must have felt, all the times he had ended up in the hospital. She takes a few deep breaths. "Very flowery room, hmm?" she asks, just to make conversation. She doesn't really know why's here, but it's nice having somebody to talk to.

Neji indicates the array of blossoms at her bedside. "Cosmos, lilies, and cherry blossoms from Ino."

Sakura smiles as she sees the elaborate arrangement. The bouquet has been tied by a very familiar, though now slightly tattered red ribbon, a red ribbon full of memories. It's their tradition to tie any get-well flowers or birthday presents with that fateful ribbon, as a reminder of how strong their friendship is, and how much it's been through.

"Chocolates from Naruto, some…reading material…from Kakashi, a large overstuffed animal with candy from Lee and Tenten, and some _decent _books and daffodils from Hinata. I daresay you've gotten quite popular. Even Gaara of the Sand and his siblings asked me to pass on their regards to you."

Ignoring the dry humor in his voice, Sakura nods toward another flower arrangement, of white and yellow roses. "And those are from?"

Neji looks out the window. "Me."

Sakura blinks, temporarily unsure if she's heard right. "You?"

"Must I repeat myself?"

"Oh!" she squeals, reaching out to take them from her bedside, and inhaling the roses deeply. "Thank you!" Impetuously, she pulls him down to her, brushing her lips against his cheek in a friendly kiss. "That was sweet."

Neji is shocked, although he hides it well. _Oh no you did _not, _forehead girl. _Immediately berating himself for the use of the old nickname (he had known her by that name until before the preliminary matches of the first chuunin exams, along with _pink-hair, _until Lee fell in love with her and quite often screamed her name joyfully), he rose from his chair. "I have lunch with my uncle today," he says, by way of explanation.

"Oh," she replies, ignoring the brief feeling of disappointment that flares inside her.

He turns, hesitates. "I'll bring Hinata this evening. After the mobs of your other well-wishers subside."

As he at the door, Sakura calls out to him. "Hey, Neji? Thanks."

For a moment, he isn't sure what to do, so he inclines his head, as she gives him a cheerful good-bye smile and wave. As Neji leaves, he is almost knocked over by Naruto and Kakashi, and the former shouts out greetings, which Kakashi echoes with a somewhat calmer version.

Outside, Neji looks back at Sakura's window one last time, and he hopes that lunch with his uncle will pass quickly, for more reasons than one.

-

Coming up next time: Neji, Sakura, the Storm From Hell, and what they do to cope with it.

(and no, it does not involve stripping clothes off and sharing body warmth. Mind out of the gutter, please.)


	14. xiv: disheveled, in the rain

XIV: _disheveled; in the rain; thunder_

_-_

"I hear thunder."

"I know," he replies, without looking back.

Sakura glares. "Aren't we going to _do _something about it?"

"Ah, yes. Because I have been known to jump into the sky at the first signs of thunder and push the bad weather away."

"Neji!" she howls, dropping her pack.

The Hyuuga turns and looks at her impassively. "If your clothes get muddy, you have nobody to blame but yourself."

At that precise moment, the medic-nin notices that the ties on the pack have gotten loose, and her brand-new pink silk sleeping top has fallen into a puddle of mud.

Smirking, he looks away. "I'm thankful that the Godaime trusted _me_ with our mission supplies."

Sakura has never hated him more since her second try at the chuunin exams, when they had battled in one of the final matches.

A loud crack of thunder sounds and a blade of lightning split the dark sky, echoing the scowling kunoichi's mood. It starts to rain, spilling fat, cold drops on the two frowning shinobi on the deserted, travel-worn road. Within moments, it is pouring.

Sakura flings her arms up to cover her head. To her horror, the water is washing away her newly dyed brown hair, splashing it through with stripes of startling pink. Within seconds, the hair escapes from its elaborate style atop her head, leaving her wet, disheveled, and angry.

To her indignation, when Neji fixes his gaze at her after a few moments of scanning the terrain for suitable cover, his mouth twitches, and something unfamiliar bubbles up in his throat. Laughter.

Deciding that enough is enough, Sakura turns her back on her mission leader, stalking into the woods, and fighting the temptation to look back and see if he's following her or not.

Silence in the forest, save for the rumblings of thunder. A sudden flash of lightning illuminates the dark landscape for a moment, and she jumps, startled.

"You're going the wrong way," a soft voice whispers in her ear, taking pleasure in her twitch of surprise. "Don't let yourself be ambushed so easily."

Deciding to ignore him, Sakura places her hands on her hips. "Which _is _the right way? I don't recall you having any suggestions."

"I did. You would have heard them, if you hadn't decided to storm off in a huff." Neji places a hand on her slender shoulder, turning her toward the west. "This way, about nine miles. There's a cave, a secure area, and a river, for fresh water." A brief moment of hesitation, a boom of thunder later. "I'll carry you," he mutters grudgingly. The rain is interfering with his chakra perception, and he doesn't need her slowing him down on the way to the cave.

Sakura battles with herself and her pride for a few moments, as he gazes at her, waiting for an answer. "…Fine." She stands on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, so that her chest presses against his back. Centering his chakra on his feet, Neji pushes off, and they fly through the forest, keeping low, in case of more lightning.

As the rain continues to pound them, Sakura begins to feel acutely aware of the fact that Neji is soaked to the bone, his shirt sticking to his skin. She feels his muscles against her body, and the nineteen-year-old shakes her thoughts away, now blushing thoroughly. His hair, normally soft, warm, and dry, hangs down his back in wet strings, all knotted and tangled.

When they settle down inside the cave, Neji and Sakura are wet, dripping, cold, and silent, until Sakura walks over to his side of the shelter, wrapping her arms around him. Her cheek presses against his chest, and she hears his heartbeat speed up. "What are you doing?" he asks stiffly.

Remaining silent, she furrows her brows in concentration, until a wave of warmth (as warm as summer in Konoha, Neji thinks) envelops them, drying clothes, skin, and hair. Understanding, the older jounin rests his hands on her back, reciprocating the chakra warmth until they are both comfortable.

As she pulls away from him, Sakura runs one hand through the length of her multi-colored hair. "I'll need more dye. _Good _dye," she yawns, feeling her eyelids droop.

Neji looks at it; a marbled mid-length mass of marbled pink and brown. "You need sleep."

"If I do…so do you."

The Hyuuga prodigy sighs, not looking forward to the next part of the mission. Silently, he walks across to the packs and pulls out a tatami mat, two pillows, and a huge fleece blanket.

Her eyes are wide. "You're joking."

"I never joke." Neji lays out the supplies, aware of Sakura's dumbfounded stare. When it's all set up, he slides to one side of the mat, trying to stifle a groan at the relief of being able to lie down again, and under a soft, _warm _blanket, no less. "You either sleep here, with the blanket, or you sleep on the floor. With no blanket."

Sakura sighs in defeat, weighing her possibilities. She's already starting to get a little chilly again. "…All right, then."

Awkwardly, she discards shoes and stockings, and after making sure Neji is facing the other way, strips off the outer layer of her dress, before sliding down next to him. His back is facing her, and it's almost as if he radiates warmth.

Sakura pulls the covers tighter over them both, feeling the irritating blush on her cheeks again. "Good night, Neji," she whispers shyly.

A few moments of silence. "Sleep well."

In a matter of minutes, they are sound asleep, unwittingly curled up against each other for warmth.

-

Note: One-hundred and one reviews. Five C2s. 17 favorites-list mentions. And 40-_40-_people have this on story alert. Wow. I'm, like, totally blown away. I can barely believe it. Thank you all so much!

Neji and Sakura totally appreciate your support of their relationship, as well. Especially Sakura, who is glad people accept that she is capable of moving on from Sasuke, and Neji, who is glad people accept that he is very into pink hair.

-big grin-


	15. xv: take it in your stride

**Note:** Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed. I was so happy with the response XD. This chapter is a follow up to chapter **seven, **if anyone remembers—the one where Neji and Sakura are talking about the impending Sasuke Retrieval Take Two. I mentioned in that chapter that the mission had failed, and this is what went down. Enjoy.

Oh, and spoilers for What Sasuke Did.

-

XV: _take it in your stride; walk_

When Sakura hears that Sasuke has been possessed by Orochimaru, seven years after the three years he had promised, she leaves the Godaime's office with no expression on her face, closing the door softly behind her. She doesn't see the look of worry on Tsunade's face.

She goes to the bench where she had said her farewells to him, ten years ago. Sakura remembers the last time she had seen him—last year. In the middle of a destroyed village; his eyes glowing with the red of the Sharingan, and his fire still burning through the outskirts of the village, through homes, through schools. Igniting the body of a little girl, running to escape. The curse seal pattern, which has covered his entire neck.

Sakura looks into his blood-colored eyes, and her wrist doesn't shake as she pulls out her weighted throwing knives from her bag. "It's over, Sasuke," she whispers firmly.

His fingers light with flame. "Why, if it isn't my old teammate." Sasuke hisses. She's startled by how much his voice has changed—it sounds almost reptilian. "How you've changed."

Sakura throws the knives at him; he dodges easily, and his eyes narrow as he pulls out a few long senbon. She knows without looking that they are coated in deadly poison.

"It's almost a pity it had to end this way, Sakura."

To her horror, she can't move, thanks to the quick jutsu he's thrown at her, an exact duplicate of Shikamaru's technique. She can't move, and she can't see the other members of her team through the smoke—

Sasuke flicks the senbon at her, casually.

In a moment, something blonde and orange crashes into her with such force that the jutsu collapses, and Sakura and her rescuer fly through the air, landing in a heap on the other side of the clearing.

"Sasuke," Naruto snarls, pulling himself up. "You don't know what you've done."

"You and Sakura," murmurs their former teammate. "I had expected a stronger force."

"Oh, really, Uchiha?" Neji's smooth voice cuts in. "I hope I didn't disappoint you."

Standing at his back are twenty members of ANBU, as well as Shikamaru, Temari, Kankurou, Rock Lee, Kakashi, and Maito Gai.

Sasuke looks at them—some of them his former classmates, his old teacher, his rivals—with eyes that show no emotion. In a moment, he's gone, vanished into thin air, and they are alone.

Naruto walks back with her. When they get back home, she cries on his shoulder for the last time.

Neji finds her sitting there in the last rays of the sun, staring out over the East Gate, dry-eyed. He approaches quietly and sits down next to her, their legs and arms brushing. After a few minutes, she places her hand on his. "You heard?"

"Yes." He pulls his hand out from under hers and takes it himself, clasping it between both of his warm ones.

Sakura manages a smile. "You didn't have to come."

"I did."

"Mmm?"

"Sakura?"

"Yes?"

"You'll take this in your stride. You always do." A pause. "You always did. You'll be all right."

Sakura reaches out and hugs him tightly, ignoring the stinging in her eyes. He stiffens, but places his arms around her gently. "Take a walk with me?" he asks, at last. "We can have dinner later."

He helps her up, and she kisses him on the cheek. "Thank you. For everything."

Neji thinks about saying something back to that, but he settles with leaning down and giving her a soft kiss. "Let's go."

The summer moon shines on the couple, as they walk back to the city slowly, hand-in-hand.

-

Aww. Neji's so supportive.

Also, Sasuke lovers, please don't kill me. This interpretation of his future just seemed to fit the prompt best. –goes and hides-


	16. xvi: shadow, flame, footfall

**Note: **As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed –grin-

-

XVI: _shadow; flame; footfall; ouch_

Their small group had set up camp for the night, scattered throughout the clearing. Naruto and Hinata's fire was almost out; the couple curled up next to each other like kittens, sleeping away the exhausting mission. Shikamaru and Choji's had gone dark a long time ago, even though the crunch of chips and a few snatches of whispered conversation could still be heard in the night.

Neji and Sakura's fire is the only one still going strong. It's because they are at the center of the campgrounds, and this flame is the one that should last through the whole night.

Neji sits, cross-legged, in front of it, his palms resting on his knees in quiet meditation, mentally reviewing the information gathered from the expedition to the Hidden Village of Sand. His sharp hearing picks up on every sound in the campground. Choji's snacking, Shikamaru's quiet conversation, Hinata's soft, peaceful breathing, and Naruto's sleep-mumblings.

And the quiet footfalls behind him, about five meters away. She is trying to be silent, and is quite close to it, but he sees her approaching shadow.

Neji stretches his arm out.

Sakura trips, and just manages to stifle a screech as she falls flat on her rump. "Ouch!" she whispers indignantly. "What the _hell _was that for?"

"You could have seen that coming from a mile away," he replies, taking some of her firewood and depositing it into the flame. It sputters a little, and reaches toward the sky. "Constant vigilance, Sakura."

While his head is bent toward the fire, the medic-nin makes a face at him. "I see that, you know."

Sakura hurriedly straightens her expression, before yawning. "How many days until we reach Konoha?"

"Five. Six or seven, if that storm comes ashore." He nods at a dark cloudbank in the distance.

She pokes at the fire. "Thanks for yesterday."

"Not a problem."

Too tired to really care, Sakura leans over, resting her head on his shoulder. He tenses beneath her, but allows the contact. The material of his shirt is surprisingly soft against her cheek. She closes her eyes.

Neji's hands resume their meditating position. Everybody in the camp is quiet, now, but he can't quite concentrate, still. He blames his lack of concentration on the pink-haired kunoichi on his shoulder. A few loose strands of her hair are blown about in the wind, tickling his nose. The Hyuuga absentmindedly wonders how it manages to smell nice, even after three weeks in Sand.

Sakura exhales, and falls into his lap, still sound asleep.

Neji stares for a few moments, unsure of what to do. At last, he settles with straightening her head, so that she won't wake up with an aching neck the next morning. Her lips brush his wrist, and his skin jumps slightly.

The wind howls through the trees. Neji slips his jacket off, covering Sakura with it, and one of her hands fists in the material of his robe.

The couple is silent and unmoving for the rest of the night.

-

Thoughts appreciated!


	17. xvii: flowers

**Note: **Thanks to everyone who reviewed. XD This chapter set during timeskip.

-

XVII: _flowers_

When Neji wakes up on the infirmary bed, the first thing he sees is three faces leering down at him. He blinks at them. _Gai-sensei, Lee, and Tenten, _his mind supplies at last.

Lee is holding a large bouquet of daisies, and as soon as he sees his teammate is awake, he gives him a blinding grin and thrusts the daisies at him. "Neji! You are awake, at last!"

"I knew you would regain consciousness soon," beams Gai-sensei. "The springtime of your youth allows for quick recuperation." He nods wisely, before giving him a thumbs-up.

Behind them, Tenten rolls her eyes, grinning.

Without further ado, all three of them find places on the bed. "You did well," Gai compliments, fluffing up the pillow. "Although,"—he sighs, looking momentarily gloomy—"the match hasn't been over two hours, and my eternal rival is already gloating."

"Sakura put up a great fight," Tenten points out. She leans over Neji, smirking. "After all, she won by a hairsbreadth. Just _barely._"

"I knew Sakura could do it," Lee plucks one petal off a daisy, looking dreamy.

"Don't you think it's a bit _odd,_ though, that she won by such a small margin? When normally, Neji's opponents lose spectacularly?"

Neji glares up at her. "Tenten, are you suggesting something?"

"Oh, no," the weapons master assures, trying to hide her glee, and not quite succeeding.

_She knows, _thinks Neji, allowing himself a moment of panic. _She _knows.

It really wasn't as bad as she was making it out to be. This _was _Sakura's third try at the chuunin exams (she, Yamanaka Ino, and Akimichi Choji had taken it last year, and from what he had heard, Ino and Sakura had almost perished in the Forest of Death, courtesy of a band of giant snakes, leaving Choji to rescue them—the snake venom had laid them both unconscious for four days), and since she was the odd one out and he was the only jounin close enough to her age, therefore, they became opponents.

And maybe he felt a little sorry for her. That was only at first, though—until one of her punches sent him flying across the stadium and almost into a concrete wall. _Then, _Neji looked at the pink-haired girl, remembering the four times she'd fixed him up after a mission, and decided that she was a worthy opponent indeed.

But, try as he might, he couldn't find it in his heart to crush her into oblivion, although he was more than capable of doing so.

Neji sneaks a look at Gai-sensei and Lee. They are at the far side of the room, arranging the daisies in a vase.

"It's not what you think," he hisses to her. "It's not as if I did it because I'm madly in love with her, or anything—one tends to show a little leniency to a person who's saved one's life more than once—"

"Yeah, that, and you have a crush on her."

Neji glares as venomously as he knows how, but she knows him too well to care. "I. Do. Not. If you continue to harp on this, I will not be responsible for my actions."

Tenten smirks. "What're you going to do, Hyuuga? Whine at me?"

Neji drops his voice ever so slightly. "No, but I'll tell Lee you like him."

The weapons master's jaw drops. "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"Oooh, touché. You win _this _time, Neji. But don't worry, I won't let Sakura know about your raging passion for her…"

Neji is reduced to faking a cough, a piteous sound, and collapsing back onto the pillows, closing his eyes. Gai-sensei and Lee immediately rush over and begin fussing over him, ranting something about youth. Tenten smirks, behind them. "I'm going, now, to congratulate Sakura," she says blandly.

"Excellent sportsmanship, Tenten!" Lee cheers, giving her a high five.

Neji cracks an eye open to glare at the receding kunoichi, who gives him a deceptively sweet smile as she leaves.

He thinks that he rather doesn't like women right now.

Next week, he runs into Haruno Sakura in the street, almost literally. "Neji! Sorry, I didn't mean to," she apologizes hurriedly, handing him his broccoli.

"It's all right," he assures her, taking his bags back. "By the way—congratulations on your promotion."

Sakura's hand goes up to touch her forehead protector, and she smiles, a little shyly. "Thank you."

They are interrupted by Inuzuka Kiba, who runs up to Sakura and gasps out something that Neji can barely make out about kibble and Akamaru and stolen steak and Choji. The situation seems to be urgent, as her eyes widen to the size of small dinner plates. "Sorry, Neji, I'd like to talk, but…"

She gives him an apologetic smile, and rushes off after Kiba.

Neji stares after her for a few moments. Upon realizing what he's doing, his eyes widen slightly and he clutches the broccoli a little closer, before making his way back down the street, forcibly ejecting all thoughts of the pink-haired chuunin out of his mind.

-

I want to see that fight animated now…there should _so _be a Neji/Sakura SMACKDOWN in canon. -grin-


	18. xviii: control freak

**Note: **As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed. XD

-

XVIII: _control freak_

Even at the tender age of five, Hyuuga Hanabi was a control freak. She threw a tantrum of epic proportions when Hinata cut her hair, because it wasn't long enough to comb and play with anymore. She had often locked herself in broom closets to sulk whenever Neji had to leave for the Academy, because that meant there was nobody for her to practice shuriken with anymore.

Age and some amount of maturity had tempered Hanabi's compulsiveness. After all, she _was _a chuunin now, and Lee-sensei had lectured her about this subject often.

But that didn't stop her from taking advantage of a highly advantageous situation.

It had started innocently enough. Hinata was out with Naruto, her father had a headache and was sitting in a dark room, begging for _peace _and _quiet, _and so a restless Hanabi had nobody to train with. And that was absolutely _unacceptable, _because Lee-sensei had planned a test for them tomorrow.

So she went searching for Neji.

The part of the Hyuuga compound designed for Branch House members was deserted, so there were no resentful glares to deal with as Hanabi ran through the hallways looking for her elder cousin.

After ten minutes, though, Hanabi was frustrated. His room was empty, and she had looked almost everywhere else except the western training room, which she was just getting ready to enter now.

"Neji nii-san!" Hanabi yelled, as she swung the door open.

A shocked silence greeted her, and the younger shinobi's jaw dropped.

Meanwhile, Neji and Sakura were quickly trying to distance themselves and smooth their jounin vests down. Neji was unaware that his hair was at an angle where Sakura had been running her fingers through it, and the blushing kunoichi was straightening the neckline of her black tunic.

"Hanabi," Neji growled, at last. "How many times do your father and I have to tell you to _knock first_?"

The quickly recovering chuunin stood a little straighter and narrowed her eyes. "He only said that once, and that was when I walked in on him and Tsunade-sama—"

"Hanabi, that is besides the point," gritted out Neji, who obviously didn't want to hear this particular tidbit about Main House family members.

"They were doing _paperwork,_" Hanabi retorted, fighting the urge to add, "pervert" to the end of her sentence. "But anyway," she changed the topic hurriedly. "I didn't know that you and Sakura were dating!" She shot Sakura a gleeful look, and the other jounin waved. They saw each other quite a lot, what with Hanabi's tendency to land in the hospital often. That, and Sakura was her best friend's sensei.

"It's actually a somewhat recent development, Hanabi," supplied Sakura.

Hanabi looked to Neji for confirmation. He studied his kunai intently. "If four and a half months qualifies as a recent development, yes," he mutters.

She looked back and forth at both of them, and then promptly swelled about two inches in height. "I'm going to tell Moegi," she informs them.

"No!" they exclaimed in unison.

"I mean, if you tell Moegi—"

"—She'll tell Konohamaru—"

"—And he'll tell Udon—"

"—Who will talk to Kagome—"

"—Who will tell Ino—"

"—And then the whole village will know. Before sunset, no less," added Neji.

Hanabi blinked for a moment, comprehending the shocking power of the Konoha grapevine. "You've been dating for four and a half months and nobody knows?"

"Ino _thinks _she knows, and I have my suspicions about Hinata and Tsunade-shisou, but then again…Ino thought that I had a great unrequited passion for Uchiha Itachi," frowned Sakura.

Neji interpreted the look on Hanabi's face wrongly. "Romance is something you don't want to even _try _to understand for a few more years," he told her.

"So, you don't want anybody to know?" asked Hanabi, frowning, and reminding herself never to let him find out about that date with Konohamaru.

"Maybe later, because everybody would be troublesome if they found out."

Hanabi must have looked somewhat puzzled, because Sakura cut in, explaining something about some bet put down by Ino, and a counter-bet put down by Naruto, until there was some sort of pool regarding Sakura's love life. "And, you see, everybody would be unbearable." She frowned. "_Especially _Kotetsu and Izumo, because they've been teasing me about Neji since summer last year."

"I'm the only one who knows, huh?"

Neji's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Hanabi…"

"Let's put it this way, nii-san—how much do you want your secret kept?"

Neji and Sakura's silence was all the answer she needed.

"Excellent," said Hanabi imperiously. "I want you two to train with me until seven-thirty."

The fifteen-year-old continued to rattle off instructions for the rest of the week's activities, before leaving for the outdoor training grounds, whistling cheerfully and slamming the door behind her.

Sakura rubbed her head and let out a small moan. "Does sadism _run_ in your family?"

"Yes," Neji replied succinctly, gathering the weapons they would use for training. He tossed a shuriken at Sakura, who caught it easily. "I think that now we know where not to, ah, _train_ together."

The medic-nin tied back her long pink hair. "How long is Hanabi going to make us suffer?" she asked, as they made their way through the empty hallways.

"For a period of no more than five and no less than two weeks, presumably," Neji said, sounding exasperated.

"Oh…well…that's not too long, is it?"

"Hanabi is a complete, utter, and total control freak."

"Well, when you put it that way…"

In the end, Hanabi made them her complete and utter slaves for four long, miserable weeks, until Neji's birthday. During the formal party, she dressed in a bright pink kimono, played the flute to much applause, and gave him her present the last of all.

Neji admitted to feeling some trepidation as he opened the gift, only to see a silk wall scroll depicting a row of trees bedecked with light rose-colored blossoms, against the blue sky and snow-covered mountains. "Because I _know _how much you _love _the sakura blossoms, nii-san," Hanabi said with a sweet smile. At the other side of the table, Hinata seemed to be stuffing her knuckles into her mouth to prevent herself from laughing.

"Now, Hanabi, you know Neji is allergic," admonished Hiashi. "It isn't polite to tease him so, especially since he's never been to the cherry blossom festival with us."

"Sorry," apologized Hanabi insincerely. "I mean, the way you look at the sakura tree in the courtyard…it's like you just can't get enough of her—I mean, _them._"

_So much evil in such a small girl_, Neji thought darkly, as he thanked her.

Then again, Sakura pointed out to him later, as she stood on the tips of her toes to give him her birthday present, it _did _run in the family.

-

Reviews are always appreciated…and Hanabi makes me laugh. Heh.


	19. xix: perfume

**Note: **Thanks to everyone who reviewed. XD And I was tempted to release this chapter as a Christmas special, but I decided to let it be viewed about three months early. Brace yourself for Neji-torture! Also, this chapter features a healthy dose of Shikamaru, for all you fans out there.

-

XIX: _cologne; perfume_

It is winter and freezing, and Hyuuga Neji and Nara Shikamaru are standing outside a perfume shop, looking decidedly unsettled.

It is a large establishment, all glass windows and extravagant displays. From what the two men can see, the shop seems to be very…sparkly, brightly lit, and generally full of things that would make even the hardest-to-please kunoichi squeal with glee.

A middle-aged woman exits the shop, holding a large red bag. A waft of strong perfume scent overwhelms Neji and Shikamaru, and they both cough and try their best to muffle the smell with the collars of their jounin vests, earning curious looks from the passing shoppers.

"This is troublesome," Shikamaru proclaims, at last.

Neji sighs. No surprises there. "We have to do it."

It is all very good for them that there are no familiar faces in the crowd, Neji decides. It really wouldn't do for the rest of Konoha's shinobi to see the Hokage's best tactician and the ANBU captain standing outside a perfume store, trying their best to work up the courage to enter.

"Yeah," acknowledges Shikamaru. "But you can go first."

"Stay behind me," Neji mutters, as he places one gloved hand on the door and pulls it open. They shuffle inside, both of them trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. Neji eyes the terrain suspiciously, noting the shelves upon shelves of brightly colored bottles. He becomes more discouraged with each visual sweep of the area. How on _earth _is he supposed to find the perfect gift for Sakura among _this? _

Neji and Shikamaru situate themselves in the "Spring Scents" corner, and Neji is unable to resist touching a shimmery pink-and-green bottle. "Are you _sure _about this?" he asks his companion doubtfully.

Shikamaru pulls his gloves off. "Yeah. I've known Ino long enough to know that she loves this stuff. And whenever we have a weekend off, I see her and Sakura around here, debating benefits of some brand or another."

Neji sighs. He's already done shopping for Sakura's primary gift, of course, back in autumn. But then he heard Shikamaru talking about this to Choji, and figured that it was best to play it safe. After all, this _was _is and Sakura's first Christmas officially _together, _and he is determined not to mess it up in any way.

"How we decide on one?" Neji asks, picking up the shimmery bottle and examining it.

"See that label?" replies Shikamaru, looking over Neji's shoulder.

The older jounin pales. "No."

"Yes," Shikamaru says grimly. "Hyuuga, time to get used to smelling like this _stuff _for the rest of the day."

Neji lifts the bottle toward his neck, and closes his eyes momentarily.

The things he does for love.

He sprays the bottle.

--

It's finally Christmas Eve and Neji and Sakura stagger back into her apartment, Sakura giggling helplessly, and Neji smirking. They both have snow all over them, the result of an impromptu snowball fight against the marauding Naruto and Kiba. Neji, being Neji, just _has _to prove his superiority over the two younger ANBU members, and has trounced them so thoroughly they both still lie in mounds of snow, quite happily unconscious.

Sakura tells Neji to sit, and went off into the kitchen to make hot chocolate, humming happily. Leaving Neji to sit on the sofa, fidgeting with the wrapping of his gift for Sakura. The box with the necklace is wrapped with silver paper, and the perfume is in the red bag it had came in, complete with green tissue paper. Neji feels highly accomplished.

Sakura returns, holding two cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows. She sets them on the table to cool, and turns toward him, one eyebrow raised. "I take those are for me?"

Neji can hear the barely-restrained excitement in her voice, and he nods, holding them out to her. "Merry Christmas," he says, feeling irritatingly self-conscious as he leans in and gives her a quick kiss.

Sakura beams, blushing slightly as she carefully peels the paper off the box. When she opens it and sees what's inside, she pales. "Oh, Neji…" She lifts the pink diamond necklace with hands that shake slightly. "This is _beautiful!_" Without further ado, she places the necklace in its box and flings her arms around him, almost knocking him off the sofa and giving him a face full of her pink hair.

Neji hugs her back, and gently deposits her on the other side of the sofa. "Try the perfume?"

Apparently, Sakura hasn't noticed that there is perfume, as well, and the ensuing squeal is enough to make him wince. Sakura lifts the gold-frosted bottle and promptly sprays it on her hand, lifting it up to take a delicate sniff of it…

…and she promptly passes out.

Neji's first instinct is to panic. Which he does, for a few seconds. And then his shinobi instincts kick in, and he lifts the unconscious Sakura and places her on the sofa, before sprinting to the kitchen and pulling cupboards open, trying to find the most pungent-smelling object available.

Sakura regains consciousness to find a very pale Neji hovering above her, holding a bowl filled with what looks like the contents of her entire spice cupboard.

After a few minutes, she is able to calm him down enough to explain that she is violently allergic to daisies, and even the smell is capable of knocking her out.

"…Oh. Right."

"It's all right, though," she assures him, sitting up and giving him a hug. "I still love you."

Neji returns the hug, looking a bit dazed.

He relays this incident to a sober-looking Shikamaru the next day, who shakes his head. "I feel your pain. I accidentally got a scent that almost made Ino vomit."

The two shinobi sigh in unison. "Never again," Shikamaru mutters.

"Never," Neji agrees wholeheartedly.

-

-grin- I think Neji and Shikamaru are my new (platonic) Dynamic Duo.

Reviews appreciated!


	20. xx: anvil, banter

**Note: **As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed.

-

XX: _anvil; banter_

It is early spring in Konoha. The birds are singing, the skies are clear and blue, the sakura trees are in bloom, and at six fifty-seven in the morning, Hyuuga Neji is asleep, nestled comfortably into his soft bed and heavy white blanket.

At seven o' clock exactly, Hyuuga Neji wakes up and stares at the white, white ceiling.

At one minute past seven, Hyuuga Neji realizes that he is in love.

The weight of this sudden realization drops on his chest like an anvil, temporarily reducing his capability for respiration.

Still stunned by the revelation, Neji functions on autopilot for the next five and a half hours, until his lunch hour. Then, on the way out of the ANBU building, he stops by Shikamaru's office, rouses the dozing tactician, and fairly drags him out with him.

"What's this about, Hyuuga?" asks Shikamaru grumpily, over his bowl of white rice and tsukemono. "You interrupted my nap."

Neji pokes at his soba with one chopstick. "I'm in love."

"Well…how very sudden. I'm sorry to say that I've already committed to Ino—"

Neji chokes on a piece of fish. "No, you _dunce._ It's Sakura, _Sakura, _I'm in love with Sakura!"

Two passers-by give them curious glances.

"There you go again, Hyuuga, yelling out your personal business to the world. First that time at the chuunin exams, now this. I detect an unhealthy pattern."

Neji glares.

Shikamaru lifts his hands, placating. "Sorry, sorry. So, let me get this straight. You're in love with Sakura now. Good. Now, you get to tell her. Wait—don't choke again. You're really a bit unstable today, aren't you?"

Taking a gulp of his water in an attempt to calm himself down, the ANBU captain inhales and exhales deeply. "It's not every day that I have a revelation like this, you know."

"Yeah. I remember what it was like with Ino."

"So…how am I supposed to tell Sakura?"

Shikamaru gives him an incredulous look. "You're not as bright as you're cracked up to be, Hyuuga. Just tell her."

Neji shakes his head, dumbfounded. "How did you tell Ino?"

"We were eating dinner. She asked for the salt. I passed her the salt. Then I told her. See? Simple enough."

"How is it that _you _tell your significant other over passing salt, and Lee prepares an elaborate dinner in the park with Tenten on New Year's Eve, and gets down on his knees and makes the declaration as the fireworks go off over their heads?"

"Neji, this is _Lee _we're talking about."

"…You have a point."

They sigh in unison.

"So," asks Shikamaru at last. "Any idea when you're going to break the happy news to our favorite medic-nin?"

"We have a date tonight," Neji mutters. "But _you _had _better _not go saying any of this to Konoha's Gossip Highway."

"Fine, fine," Shikamaru concedes. "I won't tell Ino. Now eat. You're going to need all the strength you can get for your impending confession."

--

It is almost ten at night, and Neji and Sakura are standing outside her apartment, holding hands, as Sakura giggles over his less-than-flattering comments about the new jounin in his squad. "You're—you're horrible," she says, stifling a yawn. "I hope that fate never deals me an ill hand by putting me in _your _team."

Neji has to smile. "I think that if you ended up in _my _team, I might just be tempted into giving you…special treatment."

"Oooh, favoritism," Sakura teases, before standing on her tiptoes and pressing her lips against his. They hold each other for a few moments, her arms linked around his shoulders and his around her waist. Neji looks down the five inches separating them, into her eyes, and takes a deep breath. _This is it. _

"Sakura?" he asks.

"Hmm?" she smiles up at him, absentmindedly noting that he seems a little nervous. She rubs his upper arms, feeling the tension there. "Spill."

Neji's eyes bore into hers intensely, and it seems to her that the Hyuuga prodigy's cheeks are actually becoming stained with the faintest shade of pink. "Sakura…I…I really…I admire…I mean, no, that's not what I'm trying to say—I really like you, but more than I've always really liked you…it's very complicated…I think about you all the time and I like pink now and I only like it when _you_ and only you treat my injuries…"

Sakura cocks an eyebrow in slight confusion, but gradually she pieces together what he's trying to say. _Prodigy, indeed, _she thinks humorously. She stands on the tips of her toes and kisses him lightly on the lips, effectively silencing his mangled confession of love. "Same to you, but more of it," she says a little breathlessly, as she pulls away.

Neji blinks at her incredulously. "Have we reached an understanding?"

Sakura fights an urge to giggle at his choice of words. "Oh, more than you can ever imagine."

Later, Neji strolls down the streets, back to the Hyuuga compound. He almost feels as if he can whistle a merry tune. Hiashi is still awake, sitting alone with Hinata and Hanabi in the parlor. Neji bows as he sees them, but as he straightens and bids them goodnight, he _smiles cheerfully_, and, ignoring the thunderstruck looks on Hanabi and Hiashi's face, bounds upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time.

"What has gotten into him?" Hiashi asks aloud, breaking their meditating silence.

"Love, I suppose," Hinata replies serenely.

Hiashi shakes his head. "Well…it happens to the best of us."

The three Hyuuga continue to meditate. Upstairs, they hear the faint sound of someone whistling an off-tune waltz, and three pairs of identical white eyes roll at once.

-

Neji's a sap when he's in love…

So, I'm aiming to hit 200 reviews with the posting of this chapter, because I wrote This Really Great Big Awesome Chapter to this fic that you guys are going to _love_, and I want to post it when I hit 200, because I like posting Really Great Big Awesome Chapters when I hit the hundred-marks on review counts. XD

Reviews appreciated!


	21. xi: the great big awesomeness

**Note: **You reviewed, you got it. :) Here comes The Really Great Big Awesome Chapter. Enjoy. XD

-

XXI: _love; emotions_

It is summer in Konoha, one of the hottest summers to date. It's warm and muggy and the very air seems damp. Normally, it's better than this (normally, people don't lock themselves into their houses and station themselves in front of an open freezer, and jounins don't assign their genin teams anything more strenuous than the proper packing of picnic baskets and scouting for good lakes to swim in), but the heat wave leaves everybody…drained.

Sakura's air conditioning is broken. Her landlady had promised that it would be fixed in three days. It's been a week and the kunoichi does nothing more than lie in bed miserably, putting the phone on speaker so she can talk to Ino and Tenten without moving a muscle.

She uses this as an excuse for her daily jaunts to the Hyuuga compound. _They _have air-conditioning, and most importantly, they have Neji.

The first time she meets his family, they pleasantly surprise her. From the way he talked about the Main Family and even some other members of the Branch Family, she had expected them to be…sadistic, cold, cruel, uncaring pricks. They were actually quite pleasant, if a little distant, and Hiashi, in particular, seemed to approve of her, amazingly enough. So she and Neji spent their time in his room, lounging and talking, or occasionally going for jaunts in his expansive indoor training rooms.

"I love your house," she tells him once. "It's _beautiful._"

"Hn," Neji replies, disinterested. "One gets used to it after a while."

Sakura flops down on his bed, admiring an exquisite jade vase. "If you say so."

Neji seats himself down on the floor, looking up at her. "The sakura picture is over there," he points out mildly. "I'm surprised you didn't notice it."

"Yes, well…" the medic-nin trails off, eyeing him intently. "Neji?"

"Hmm?"

Sakura fidgets, pulling herself up into a sitting position. "Promise you won't Kaiten me into the next room if I ask you this?"

Neji gives her a suspicious look. "…Yes?" he asks guardedly.

"It's your hair!" she blurts out at last. One of his eyebrows rises almost imperceptibly, and she hastens to explain. "I mean, look at my hair. It's a little past my shoulders, and it's always sweaty and damp and _disgusting._"

"And?"

"And your hair is so much longer than mine and it still looks perfect," Sakura completes, with a childish pout.

Neji has to chuckle at the look on her face. Sakura basks in the warmth of it, before he stops, all too soon. "I'll tell you a secret. My hair is long, heavy, too thick for my liking, and hard to manage. It seems to make me feel at least ten degrees hotter than it really is outside."

She can't help but smirk. "So, you're really human, are you?" In response to his deadpan look, she giggles, and then sobers. "I know what your problem is."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"_Yes, _I do, and if you're not nice to me I won't tell you."

In a rare display of levity (twice in one day; Sakura wonders if the heat is getting to him), he reaches out and takes her hand, brushing her knuckles against his lips. "Oh, I'll be nice," he says, in a way that sends pleasurable shivers up and down her spine.

She pulls her hand away from his, giving him a mischievous look. Without another word, she slides out of his bed and crosses over to the dresser, picking up his comb. It is fine and pearl-handled, made out of something that looks suspiciously like ivory. Sakura cocks an eyebrow, brandishing the comb at him. "Borrowed another one of Hinata's possessions, hmm, Neji?"

The Hyuuga comes startlingly close to coloring slightly, and he reaches out and snatches the comb from her with speed her eyes can barely follow, before tucking it away behind him. "It is not Hinata's," he says stiffly. "If you must know, it was a gift from my late aunt after my birth. Evidently, she had expected me to be born a girl."

Sakura tilts her head to one side, imagining _that_ situation. Not unpredictably, she begins to giggle at the mere thought of a female Neji.

The ANBU captain glares.

"Okay, okay," she hastens to appease him. "No need to get all irritable on me. Now, do you want me to help you with your problem, or not?"

"Fine…"

She slides down beside him, placing both small hands on his shoulders and turning his back toward her. Years of familiarity allow her to actually touch him without his instinctively tensing beneath her. "It's your _hair, _Neji."

"I thought you liked my hair, Sakura."

Brushing his light teasing aside, she rolls her eyes. "I like your hair. I don't like the way you manage it. The entire _style _is the reason you're all hot and uncomfortable this time of year." She gives it an appraising look. "Frankly, it isn't the best looking for your facial type, either—"

"—I've been wearing it like this since we were _genin,_" he says, inwardly feeling pained.

"I would have told you then, but I was afraid you'd bite my head off," Sakura teases gently, although she can't help but remember the cold, bitter, _frightening_ boy of thirteen she had met during their first chuunin exams.

Neji 'hmphs' softly, looking off into the distance, into the memories of long years past. "…Was I that bad?" he asks, at last.

"Well." Not wanting to hurt his feelings too badly, she leans forward and wraps her arms around his waist. "Let's put it this way. I would never have thought that you could have grown up into the person you are now."

Neji closes his eyes, feeling her run her fingers through his hair, until they stop at the tie holding the long locks back around the middle of his spine. She struggles with the knot for a moment, before pulling the tie loose, and his hair cascades freely down his back. Sakura sighs with pure envy.

"Would it do me any good to ask you what you plan to do now?" he inquires, settling down on his knees.

"Patience, dearest," she replies humorously, standing up and taking the comb from him, along with the discarded hair tie.

They remain silent as Sakura combs his hair back neatly, pulling it back into a high ponytail, away from the back of his neck. After quickly and efficiently tying it, she pats his head with a grin. "Isn't this so much better, Neji? It's neat and away from your face _and _neck, and it makes you look better without that silly tie dangling four inches away from the ends of your hair."

Neji leans up, taking a long look at his reflection in the mirror. "…My hair looks like Yamanaka Ino's," he says, at last.

"That was the inspiration, actually…" Sakura mumbles, before brightening. "I love Ino, but I think the style looks better on you. Well, what else do you think?"

He looks at the hopeful look on her face, and can't help but tell the truth. "It's nice," he says, at last. "It feels a lot cooler."

Sakura pokes his cheek gleefully. "Yes!"

"You are _entirely _too easily amused," Neji says with a smirk.

"That's what everybody says," she replies, unmoved, before leaning close and resting her head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her lightly, and they look out of his window, watching the last brilliantly red rays of the setting sun slip beneath the mountain.

Sighing softly, she moves to separate them. "It's getting late…I should probably go."

Neji surprises both of them by reaching out and suddenly taking her hand, intertwining both fingers with hers. "No," he says softly. "Stay."

Sakura's eyes widen to the size of small dinner plates, and she blushes hotly. "Er…Neji…" she squeaks. "We, um, have a mission early tomorrow…it's not a good idea…" A sudden thought seems to strike her, and she grabs his arm hurriedly. "But I really would, you know, if…"

"I don't mean it like that."

Sakura sits down beside him, hard. "Ohhhh." Her eyes close momentarily as she imagines what actually spending the night here would be like.

Startlingly, they haven't slept together. Haven't even gone further than lots of kissing and occasionally a hand up a shirt.

Ino claims it is unnatural (conveniently forgetting that_ she _hadn't slept with anybody prior to her engagement to Shikamaru), but Sakura disagrees. They are, after all, shinobi first, and men and women second. Their personal lives come second to their career.

"What…what do you mean, then?"

Neji regards her for a few long moments, the emotion in his snowy eyes unreadable. Without saying another word, he gets up and pads across to his dresser, pulling out something from under his jounin vest.

The small red velvet box fits easily inside his palm as he walks back to Sakura. He sinks down beside her, and when she catches a glimpse of the box, she pales suddenly. "Neji?"

The older jounin opens it, giving Sakura a view of the exquisite ring inside. She gasps softly, but doesn't make any move to stop him as he slides the ring on her finger gently. Neji looks up at her with those stunning eyes. "I know I'm just a Branch family member, but I…I love you, and I would be honored if—"

Sakura cuts off his proposal by flinging her arms around his neck, knocking him over to the floor. "Yes, yes, _yes_, a million times over." She kisses him on the lips enthusiastically, and through his surprise, his hands reach up and stroke her back gently.

She slides off him, nestling into his side, and they lie there for a few minutes of quiet bliss. Neji's hand covers her own, and he turns his head to the side, burying his face in her abundance of pink hair.

"Will your uncle mind?" she asks at last, momentarily breaking the spell.

Neji raises himself on one elbow, gazing down at her. "I told him when I bought the ring. He approves wholeheartedly." He watches her for another moment, a small smile on his face.

They spend another hour together. Hiashi visits them shortly before eight-thirty, and gives the blushing Sakura his congratulations. He invites her to stay for dinner, but she declines politely, citing prior engagements.

Still somewhat dazed, Sakura manages to make her way across town to Ino's place, pounding on the door relentlessly, until she hears her best friend holler from the other side of the door—"Get it, Shikamaru! What, d'you want Forehead Girl to break down the door!"

A very irritated-looking Shikamaru flings the door open, only to be knocked aside by a gasping Sakura. "Ino, where is she?"

Ino pokes her head through the bedroom door, dressed in an oversized shirt and a pair of blue shorts. "Sakura, what—"

All of a sudden, she stops dead in the middle of her tirade, her blue eyes widening as they focus on Sakura's hand. "Oh—" she squeals. "He proposed?"

Sakura just gives her the same beam she's been wearing since Neji slipped the ring on her finger. It is answer enough for Ino, and the Torture and Interrogations specialist launches herself on Sakura, shrieking high-pitched congratulations.

Shikamaru watches the two women cling to each other, and rolls his eyes. "Congratulations, Sakura," he says, when the loud glee dies down, and gives her a rare lazy smile. He then yawns hugely, stretches, and strolls back into the bedroom.

Ino rolls her eyes at his back. "Well, Sakura?"

"Well, what?"

"Well, what about your _plans_?"

"Plans?"

"Forehead girl, you can be so _dense _sometimes. Let me break this down into terms you can understand. You and Neji are engaged now. Which means, naturally, that you are going to get married soon. Hence the plans. For your _wedding._" Ino pauses, before adding, "Duh."

"Oh," Sakura squeaks. "Well, isn't it too early to start planning things?"

She is greeted with a deadpan look. Ino grabs her wrist and drags her over to the sofa, grabbing an armful of wedding magazines on the way there. "Well, it looks like we can forget sleeping tonight. Let's settle on a winter wedding, hmm?"

"Shouldn't I be doing this with Neji, Ino?"

"Of _course _not. Did I make my wedding plans with Shika? No. Because he is, after all, only a man. So you need me, naturally."

Sakura opens her mouth, before closing it, sensing that it would be useless to argue.

Ino grins.

--

Neji and Sakura's wedding is on the thirtieth of December.

It passes by in a blur through Sakura's eyes, and later, she only remembers parts of it. Kakashi-sensei walking her down the isle, Tsunade-shisou sniffling into a handkerchief and vehemently denying it later, Naruto running around and being extremely exuberant and emotional in turns, and finding Ino, Naruto, and Kakashi-sensei giving Neji a "talking-to" before the wedding.

But most of all, she remembers the traditional shinobi vows, and the look in Neji's white eyes as they shared their first kiss as a married couple.

It is very late when they walk back to the Hyuuga compound, hand-in-hand. They are both silent, because nothing really needs to be said.

Hiashi and Hinata are waiting for them, standing on opposite sides of the elaborate compound gate.

Neji and Sakura begin to bow upon seeing the clan leader and heiress, but Hiashi holds his hand up, stopping them, before bowing himself, his long hair (so like Neji's), falling over his shoulders. Neji shows no outward emotion; although his hand grips Sakura's so tightly that she has to keep from wincing.

Hiashi places his hand on the gate and pushes it open. "Welcome home," he says.

Hinata smiles encouragingly, and Neji and Sakura walk forward, taking the first steps into their new life, together.

-

…

AWWWWWW!

Sorry. I get a little carried away when doing my NejiSaku. ;)

(You can tell that Neji practiced that proposal in front of the mirror for ages, and even then, he stuttered _and _Sakura cut it in half! Poor guy can't catch a break.)

206 reviews? I'm totally wowed. Thank you guys so much!

206 reviews, 16452 hits, 7 C2s, 36 favorites, and 67 story alerts.

You all rock. :) Neji and Sakura thank you.

So, tell me what you think?


	22. xii: headache

**Note: **-cough- It's been a while since I updated. Sorry! I was working on my InoSaku piece, finishing _How Neji Got His Groove Back, _and doing some more NejiSakuShika work, which should be posted soon. :) Thanks for the lovely response to the last chapter! So, I present to you some married!NejiSaku fluff.

-

XXII: _headache_

Neji is lying facedown in bed, looking rather as if someone has entered their bedroom and clubbed him with something extremely large and heavy. He doesn't even twitch when Sakura closes the door behind her, which is admittedly very worrying. Neji, in general, is very twitchy, paranoid, and extremely sensitive to sound.

"Neji?" she asks cautiously, kicking off her shoes. "Are you all right?"

Neji mumbles something into the heavy blanket.

A new alarm bell goes off in Sakura's head. Neji is _always _coherent. So she pads over to the bed, discarding her coat and flinging it into an armchair. The large bed only sinks a fraction of an inch when she sits on it, scooting closer to her seemingly comatose husband and tentatively placing his head in her lap, careful not to mess up his hair.

Neji looks up at her now, and his eyes seem to take a moment to focus. "Sakura…" he mumbles. "I…"

"What?"

"I have a headache."

Sakura sighs and almost drops his head. "You've been under my care after suffering the most horrific of injuries, and I've never seen you fall into pieces like this. For a _headache. _Honestly." She pokes him in the cheek, unable to restrain a smile. "Of course, with a brain as big as yours, having a headache affects a larger mass of pain sensors than, say, Naruto's brain would," she says humorously.

"Exactly," he mutters, adjusting his head into a more comfortable position.

"Always the modest one, aren't you?"

"Mmm-hmm." He cracks one snowy eye open. "Heal me?"

"Hmm, I don't know…" Sakura closes her eyes, pretending to think. "Tsunade-shisou always says that rest is the best medication for headaches."

"Sakura…please…"

The medic-nin gasps, feigning shock. "Is the almighty Hyuuga pleading?"

"Only to you," the ANBU captain grouses. "I've been suffering in agony for too long to be prideful."

"Well, I'm not going to make you beg," Sakura grins, smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Well, not _yet,_ anyway," she muses to herself. She closes her eyes in concentration, and when she opens them again, her right hand is cloaked with a thin sheet of something resembling green fire.

Gently, she sets her hand on Neji's forehead, and he sighs with pure satisfaction. "Oh." His brow relaxes, and the pounding and sustained tension in his head, neck, and shoulders slowly disappears.

Sakura almost giggles at the look of absolute contentment on his face; rather like a puppy who has just been scratched behind his ear. She withdraws her hand, and the chakra veil lifts. "Better?" she asks softly.

Neji sits up and kisses her on the cheek. "Oh, much," he says, in a voice that sends pleasurable shivers down her spine.

"So, you're not going to fall over and go into a coma if I happen to take my arm from around your shoulders?"

"No." Neji smirks at her. "As a matter of fact, I don't find myself very exhausted at this point in time, thanks to your _masterful _healing."

Sakura smirks right back at him. "I can fix that, too." She places both hands on his shoulders, pressing him down into the pillows.

"Good," replies Neji, just for the sake of having the last word. "I'm looking forward to it greatly."

-

I find it amusing that I was listening to "Naughty Girl," by Beyoncé, while writing this chapter. We're not fooled by the sweet medic act, Sakura, and neither is Neji. But then again, he's not complaining. XD

As always, reviews appreciated!

(also, I just wanted to know – how many NejiSakuShika fans do I have out there? REPRESENT!)


	23. xiii: diabolical, highest order

**Note: **Sorry for the lack of updates. High school is, as always, eating my life, and also—I've been working on my NejiSakuShika series,_ Isosceles. _Give it some love? XD

-

twenty-three: _diabolical; highest order_

There has never been any doubt in Neji's mind that Sakura is a formidable opponent. He remembers getting punched across the arena and almost into a concrete wall during her chuunin exam final matches. As a shinobi, she is more than capable of making ANBU, even though she thinks that she will do more good as a medic.

He watched her pummel Uchiha Sasuke to within an inch of his life and drag him back to Konoha. His uncle once said that she might even surpass her mentor, the great Tsunade-sama, within a few years.

So, Neji knows that, when Sakura sets her mind to something, it _is _going to get done, whether she has to threaten somebody with death (all the while smiling sweetly), or simply coax him or her into it.

After all, that was what happened when she decided that their bedroom needed to be painted. ("White, Neji! Everything is so _white_! Not cream, not ivory, white white white! And it's _peeling, _too!")

And that is why their room is now a shade of "moonlight buttercream with gold trim," or something of that nonsense. Neji despairs.

When he heads home one warm summer night, flying through the branches of the bordering forest, he certainly hadn't expected that he would see his oh-so-lovely pink-haired wife standing out in front of the gates to the compound, still in her work clothes, and…holding something?

Neji frowns a little. "Byakugan."

The veins around his eyes bulge out, and now he can clearly see Sakura holding a small gold-furred puppy that is energetically licking her arm, while she smiles cheerfully, waving to him.

Neji almost falls out of his tree.

By some miracle, he manages to make it to the gates without any further blunders. "Sakura, what is _that thing_?"

Sakura makes a face at him. "Hello, Neji, how was your day?"

"Mine was fine, yours?" He replies automatically, finally knowing what Shikamaru meant when he said his father was totally whipped by his mother.

"Absolutely lovely," Sakura beams. She holds the puppy up to his face. "And look at this beautiful little thing! Isn't she sweet, Neji? Isn't she?"

As if in acknowledgement, the puppy licks Neji on the nose with a small, rough pink tongue, and the ANBU captain jumps back with an exclamation of dismay.

"Aww, she likes you." Oblivious to his distress, Sakura holds the puppy close, smoothing its fur and scratching it behind its ears as it licks her wrist.

"That's unhygienic," Neji says at last, observing the dog with an expression of distrust. "Sakura, where did you find _that_?"

"She was wandering around outside the compound when I got back from work, the poor thing." She nuzzles it momentarily, before looking up at her husband with a pleading expression in her green eyes.

Neji backs away one step, hoping that will lessen the potency of Sakura's pleading look. It doesn't work. "My uncle will not approve," he says, crossing his arms.

Sakura smirks. "One step ahead of you, Hyuuga. Hiashi-sama was the one who initially approved my request. He said having a puppy would be good for you."

Neji's white eyes narrow. _Damn. _"…Hanabi's allergic to dogs."

"Haha, Hanabi stopped by earlier and petted and squealed over the puppy for about half an hour! You _lie!_"

"Sakura—"

"Neji…" she interrupts, cradling the puppy and giving him her most heart-melting look. "Please. I've always wanted a pet. I checked this little one out with the animal center—she already has all her shots and everything. She was _abandoned. _Left alone to wander in the cold, starving, out of her environment—"

"Sakura, it's the middle of summer."

"Neji…"

Neji closes his eyes momentarily. _Don't be fooled. This is all part of her diabolical strategy. _

When he opens them again, he is faced with two beseeching gazes—Sakura's, and the dog's.

Silence.

"…Fine."

Sakura squeals, and gives him a one-armed hug. The puppy climbs onto his shoulder and burrows her face into Neji's hair—and, worst of all, his wife is gripping him so hard that he can't even disentangle the canine from his long brown locks.

"It's really not that big of a deal," Neji mutters. Sakura pulls away, and gives him a wide-eyed smile of adoration. The little dog barks, from her place on his shoulder. "Let's go inside?" he asks, lifting the wriggling puppy and cradling it in his arms awkwardly.

Sakura grins again, before tugging on his free hand, leading them inside the gates to the inside of the compound. She glances at him, stifling a laugh when she sees him trying to figure out how to hold the puppy.

_The power of pink wins again, cha! _Inner Sakura yells triumphantly, punching the air. Sakura smiles and shoves her hands into her pockets. _I prefer to think of it as my diabolical strategy, myself. _

But in the meantime—

"Neji, what are you doing? Don't hold her like that—wait—argh!"

Neji foists the protesting puppy into her arms, and strides ahead, blushing.

Sakura rolls her eyes at his back. _Men. _

The puppy barks in agreement.

-

Haha, Neji and a dog…

Reviews appreciated!

And also, happy Halloween! I know it's just the 30th, but still. In case I don't update tomorrow and all. –grin-

Heh. My birthday is in exactly 27 days. Anyone wanna guess how old I'm going to be?


	24. xiv: romeo, romeo

**Note: **As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed. XD

-

twenty-four: _romeo, romeo…_

At the age of seventeen, Haruno Sakura has already resigned herself to living single, spending her life alone, and growing old and gray in a small apartment populated with lots of cats.

Ino thinks this is unspeakably foolish. As far as she is concerned, Sakura is strong and beautiful, and any guy should be happy to have her.

Unfortunately for her, Sakura seems to have no initiative whatsoever. Ino suggests going to a bar; Sakura says she would rather sit at home and study her medical scrolls. Ino points out a couple of cute, single new jounin, and Sakura sighs over them for about a moment or two, but when Ino suggests making a move, Sakura shakes her head and changes the subject.

So Ino does what any reasonable girl in her position would do - set Sakura up with some people, without her knowledge, of course.

Inexplicably, as far as Sakura is concerned, she ends up on dates with Choji (the best cook _ever_), the visiting Gaara (who is surprisingly pleasant, but not really her type), Shino (who is nice, really, but the bugs creep her out), and Inuzuka Kiba.

To everyone's surprise, including her own, Sakura and Kiba go out for a couple of months. Ino secretly rejoices, thinking that her friend has found happiness at last.

Sakura and Kiba's split is amicable and inevitable, in reflection, but Ino still rages when she finds out.

At the age of eighteen, Sakura is still resigned to living single, spending her life alone, and growing old and gray in a small apartment populated with lots of cats.

"Your standards are impossibly high," Ino tells her mournfully, one afternoon over lunch. "You'll never find someone if you continue to go on like this."

Sakura shrugs, and continues to eat her ramen.

Ino stabs her dumplings viciously, cursing Uchiha Sasuke's name.

At the age of nineteen, Ino is going out with Shikamaru, and Sakura is friends--of a sort--with Hyuuga Neji.

Upon learning this, Ino feels a small flicker of hope in her heart. Maybe--just maybe--after all, Sasuke and Neji _were_ rather alike in demeanor and skill…

Ino once mentions this to Sakura, a few months later. Sakura gives Ino a rather blank look. "You're wrong, Ino-pig," she says at last, gathering up her medical scrolls. "There's no comparison between them."

The shitenshin-using kunoichi stares after her retreating friend, while Inner Ino squeals loudly.

Needless to say, Ino gloats the most when Sakura and Neji start going out. She is absolutely unbearable at their wedding.

"You owe it all to me," Nara Ino tells Sakura smugly, during one of her visits to the Hyuuga compound. "I helped you find true love, didn't I, forehead girl?"

Sakura snorts. "As if. You just tried to set me up with every man in Konoha. I found Neji on my own, thank you very much." She smiles slightly as she looks out the window, seeing Neji's distant figure walking through the courtyard with his uncle and the puppy.

"Yeah right," sniffed Ino. "I am Konoha's ultimate matchmaker."

"No, Tenten is."

"Besides Tenten. In some way, I _know _I was responsible for you and Neji finding true love together. You two are like Romeo and Juliet. Even though there was a natural romantic force drawing you together, neither of you would have realized it if it hadn't been for some sort of outside force." Ino grinned. "That force being me."

Sakura makes a face, and throws a cushion at her friend. "Well, look how Romeo and Juliet turned out!"

Ino opens her mouth and closes it again. "Well…that's because their outside force wasn't adequate!" she says defensively. "Unlike yours."

Sakura waves her hand mockingly, and offers Ino some lemonade.

--

Later that night, Sakura sits cross-legged in their bed, combing her hair out. "Hey, Neji?" she calls.

He pokes his head through the bathroom door, in the process of toweling his long hair. "Hn."

"You're very coherent tonight," Sakura teases, setting the comb aside.

"The dog is _teething _on my fingers," Neji replies, sounding pained. He cranes his head to the side, continuing to towel. "If you were in my position, I doubt you would be very cheery."

"True enough." Sakura watches Neji's exploits with the towel for a few moments. "Just wrap the thing around your head, for goodness sakes!"

Neji turns back toward her, and scoffs. "No. It's not…"

"Not?"

"It's not manly," Neji mutters, his cheekbones tinged with the vaguest shade of pink.

Sakura sighs. "Come here."

The ANBU captain obeys, sitting next to his wife, who lightly places her hands in his thick hair. She closes her eyes for a moment, and a wave of gentle warmth envelops Neji's head, drying his hair in less than three seconds.

Neji blinks.

Sakura grins, lounging back against the pillows. "Part of the many, many benefits of having a medic-nin wife, genius."

A few minutes later, as the lights are turned out and they are cuddled up under the covers, Sakura raises herself up on her elbow, and looks at Neji. "Neji?"

"Hmm?" he mumbles.

"Was it fate?"

Neji opens his eyes, slightly startled by the question. "If I'm assuming correctly as to what you're referring to, then I'd have to say I'm not quite sure. I have reflected upon it at length, but I still have not drawn a conclusion. Why the sudden curiosity?"

"Just something that Ino said," Sakura murmurs, lying back down beside him. She turns her head to the side, kissing him on the cheek softly. "I'm glad I found you."

Neji is unusually silent for a few moments. "…Have you been reading Romeo and Juliet again?"

Sakura whacks him on the chest.

He waits until she is asleep before curling his arm back around her, pulling her securely close. "But I love you all the same, forehead girl."

-

And we're glad you found Neji too, Sakura dear. -grin-

Reviews appreciated!


	25. xv: subconcious, bury

**Note: **As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed. This is another Great Big Awesome Chapter, what with it being Thanksgiving and all. XD

-

twenty-five: _the subconscious, bury_

Hyuuga Neji is in a state of extreme displeasure.

Somebody has told him that he has to take a vacation.

Now, if any other member of ANBU had received this ultimatum by none other than the stern-looking Godaime (with her head tactician standing at her back, nodding sternly—_curse you, Shikamaru_), they would have been ecstatic. Running-around-Konoha-squealing-in-glee ecstatic.

Of course, Neji is not just _any other member _of ANBU. As he walks out of headquarters for the last time in two weeks, he feels as if he can cry. Life without work is barely life at all.

In the old days, he would have simply trained his days away with Lee or his uncle. But that was before he had gotten to know Sakura.

In other words, before Sakura had forcibly made him get a life. Besides, now that they were married, she would _enforce _his life.

Yes, Neji has no luck at all.

So Neji makes his way home, head down and looking more than a little glum. He runs into Lee and Tenten on the way, who both make bad jokes about his "perceptive aura of gloom."

Neji merely sighs, tosses his hair, informs Lee that he has used the word "perceptive" wrongly, and continues to trudge slowly down the street, leaving a large amount of blue gloom in his wake. Birds cease singing and little girls skipping home with flowers for parents watch in dismay, as their flowers seem to wilt before their very eyes. A cloud passes over the sky.

And Neji keeps walking, wrapped up completely and utterly in his bad luck.

He realizes, halfway home, that his newfound break will mean that Sakura has an excuse to organizer another dinner party. This realization is enough to stop the ANBU Captain in his tracks.

His wife is an exceedingly popular shinobi, and so is he. Between them, they have amassed a _lot _of friends. There are the Rookie Nine and their families, all of their old jounin-sensei, Lee and Tenten, ANBU friends, medic-nin, shinobi they had worked with at some point or another, Tsunade (who always demanded an invite), genin teams…

And to top it all off, the Sand Siblings were visiting. Oh, joy.

To be fair, Neji likes them all. He really does, honestly. But gathering that number of shinobi in one place over dinner and wine…

It had been an interesting experience. He had learned the hard way that fire jutsu, alcohol, weaponry, sand, and a pet pig _did not _mix. It had taken a week to fix all the damages.

Everybody had had a wonderful time, though, and departed from the Hyuuga compound at around midnight, smiling and waving. Neji had fled upstairs, abandoned the idea of another shower, and cowered under the covers until morning.

The very memory is enough to make him twitch.

So Neji is convinced not to let Sakura guilt him into another dinner party. He will have to make his argument subtly, of course. He loves Sakura dearly, but the woman is dangerous when she needed to be, and Neji doesn't want to be on the receiving end of one of her punches.

It is early evening and the Hyuuga compound is deserted. Hinata is out, Hanabi is training with Konohamaru and Moegi, his uncle is with Hinata and Naruto, and Neji seems to have the house to himself. Most likely Sakura is still at work as well.

Well, not completely to himself. As soon as Neji opens the door to the compound, he is attacked by a small golden furball who immediately begins licking him energetically.

Neji lifts the puppy; wincing slightly at the feeling of the warm, wet doggy saliva. No matter how much Sakura tells him the licks were because of the dog's "love" for him, he still wishes that the canine Yuki could find some other way to express her love, rather than drooling all over him.

"Good girl," Neji tells Yuki awkwardly. In the past months, he has become quite skilled at holding the puppy. Yuki pants happily, her pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. One golden ear flops over her eye, but she leans forward nevertheless, almost gently taking two of Neji's fingers in her mouth, before proceeding to chew on them.

Neji groans aloud, holding the dog an arm's length away. "Sakura bought you chew toys," he tells Yuki grumpily. "And yet you insist on teething on _my fingers._"

Upon hearing Sakura's name, Yuki's ears perk up, and she abandons her chewing of Neji's fingers, instead opting to wriggle out of his hands.

Neji blinks, setting the puppy down. Normally she victimizes him for no less than fifteen minutes after he returns home.

Yuki, now on the floor, runs around her human master excitedly, finally coming to a stop in front of him. She wags her tail at the bemused Neji. "What is it?"

In response, Yuki runs around him one more time and then skitters to the corner of the stairs, where she lifts one paw and gazes at him questioningly.

"I am too old to be playing guessing games with dogs," Neji mutters to himself. "What is it, Yuki?"

Yuki responds by bounding up the stairs with a little difficulty, Neji following behind her, careful not to trod on her tail. She leads him further down the hallway, all the while barking happily.

Neji is more than a little perplexed to find that the dog has led him to his own bedroom. He sighs aloud, leaning down to ruffle her fur. "I appreciate your guidance, but in future, I think I'll be able to find my own way to my bedroom."

Yuki barks.

Shaking his head, Neji enters the bedroom, and is immediately slammed with a sense of foreboding. Something feels terribly, horribly wrong. He activates his Byakugan and scans the room, hand instinctively going to his weapons pouch. Nothing.

With his hands still in a firm defensive stance, Neji edges further into the room. No traps so far. Of course, this could all be an elaborate genjutsu…after all, Uchiha Itachi is blind, but still at large…

"Oh, for goodness sakes," an exasperated voice sounds from somewhere to his left. "Neji, you're so paranoid."

Instinct takes over, and Neji promptly Jyuukens the closest object to him, which happens to be the solid wood dresser. For a moment, nothing happens. Then the dresser splinters into a thousand little pieces.

"Neji! That was your uncle's!"

Neji spins around to see, not a deadly missing-nin, but…Sakura, wearing not her medic-nin clothes, but pajama bottoms and a mesh shirt. Her normally carefully styled hair hangs in disarray around her face, and she draws one pale and slightly shaking hand across her green eyes. She manages a half-smile for him, nevertheless.

Neji crosses over to her in two quick strides, carefully wrapping an arm around her. "Sakura? Are you all right?" In all their married life, he has never seen her come home from work early.

Sakura's left eye twitches a little. "I don't know. I think I've got the flu or something. This is the second day I've thrown up. And I'm really hungry all the time, but nothing _stays _down."

Neji raises an eyebrow. "Have you seen Tsunade-sama?"

Sakura snorts at him. "No. All I want…is…"

"Is?" Neji prompts. He is used to taking care of sick females, since Gai-sensei had practically forced them to tend to Tenten whenever she had fallen ill, and as Hinata's cousin, it was his duty to protect her when she was feeling unwell.

"Is some spicy chicken-filled dumplings," Sakura sighs. "And I don't even _like _spicy food. What are you doing home, anyway? You don't look as dead as I do."

"I've been forced to take a vacation," Neji mutters under his breath. "But it's probably for the best, seeing as you're ill and whatnot."

Sakura gives him another tired smile. "How sweet of you. But I'm just going to go and sleep some, now." Without waiting for a response, she staggers over to the bed and collapses on top of it in an exhausted heap.

Neji looks at her, feeling slightly worried. He sets his katana and mask down on the non-decimated dresser, and, stepping over the remains of the old one, heads downstairs, to see if those spicy chicken-filled dumplings can be arranged.

--

In the next two days, Sakura's condition doesn't improve itself. She is throwing up more instead of less, and the need for dumplings has increased. Despite his insisting, Sakura firmly refuses to see a medic about this. Neji secretly thinks it's a pride issue.

Which is how he finds himself at Tsunade's office on Saturday afternoon, standing in front of the Godaime as she fixes him with a stern glare. "What are you doing here, Hyuuga? Do I have to order you barred from the doors?"

"No, Hokage-sama, this isn't another plea to resume my duties," Neji says hastily. Last thing he needs is to have Izumo, Kotetsu, and Shikamaru having an excuse to harass him every time he passes Hokage Tower. They do that enough already. "It's concerning Sakura."

At the mention of her former apprentice, Tsunade sits up a little straighter. "Sakura?"

"As I'm sure you're aware, Sakura has been indisposed for the past four or so days," Neji closes his eyes for a moment.

"Ah, yes. I remember filling in for her earlier this week, when she had to leave. She said it was just a bug." Tsunade fixes Neji with a fish-eyed look. "Do you have reason to believe otherwise?"

"It just doesn't seem like a mere bug."

"Mm. What are her symptoms?"

Neji thinks for a moment. "Vomiting in the mornings and usually after meals. Fatigue. Foot pain…and a constant need for spicy chicken-filled dumplings. These symptoms have not changed, and have not ceased or showed any sign of relenting."

To the Hyuuga prodigy's intense indignation, Tsunade actually smiles slightly. _Smiles. _It is all Neji can do to stop himself from pulling a Naruto—namely, running around the Hokage's desk squealing that _Sakura-chan is _sick _and this most certainly not a matter of amusement, baa-chan! _

Outwardly, Neji preserves his shell of calm composure, and simply narrows his white eyes a little.

Tsunade scoffs. "Don't look at me like that, Hyuuga. I'm not a little genin to go running around panicking that the big scary white-eyed man gave me the evil eye."

Neji winces. He hates to be reminded of that brief stint as an Academy instructor. "About Sakura?" he asks, a little impatiently.

Tsunade waves her hand at him, with that infuriating smile on her face again. "Sakura has misdiagnosed herself slightly, it seems," she says sweetly. "Now, why don't you run along and visit your friends? I need to pay a quick visit to the Hyuuga compound."

Before Neji can do more than blink twice and look stunned, Tsunade has disappeared from behind her desk in a swirl of green leaves.

Neji sighs despairingly. _Women._

--

After an hour of wandering aimlessly around Konoha and terrifying no less than three weapons' shop owners and two dumpling sellers, Neji determines that it is probably safe to return home. After forming a quick succession of hand seals, he vanishes from the crowded street corner, in the process scaring three young children.

--

"Why don't you sit down, Neji?"

Neji gives Sakura an odd look. "I'm already sitting."

Sakura laughs nervously. "Oh yes. I appear to have overlooked that fact." She fidgets slightly, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

Neji is unimpressed. "Tsunade-sama visited, it seems, judging from the empty sake bottles."

"Yeah," nods Sakura. She sounds slightly distracted. "Well…I'm going to cut to the chase—"

"—That would be nice," Neji interjects dryly.

The pink-haired kunoichi gives him the evil eye. "As Tsunade-sama said, I seem to have…misdiagnosed my symptoms."

"Misdiagnosed?" Neji looks at her warily. "Misdiagnosed how drastically?"

Sakura smiles. "Fairly drastically. Neji…I'm pregnant."

There was complete, utter silence in the sitting room of the Hyuuga compound for a few moments, broken only by the loud, solid _thud _of Neji's unconscious body slipping off the sofa and hitting the floor.

--

"How did he react when you told him?" Temari of the Sand inquires, over her glass of wine.

Sakura smirks, resting a hand on her stomach. From his place carrying a heap of baby shower presents, Neji winces.

"Well, with a big strong shinobi like Neji," drawls Shiranui Genma from the other side of the room, "you'd expect him to take it like a man."

"Oh, he did," Sakura assures. She turns her head to the side, catching sight of Neji and the tower of brightly wrapped boxes. "He fainted."

In response to the howls of laughter from everybody inside the dining room, Neji blushes a shade of very un-Hyuuga like red.

-

This month has been so busy. Our whole freshman class went to California to see Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm last weekend, and it was _so much _fun, although really tiring.

And, guess what? I passed my black belt test in Tae Kwon Do on Tuesday evening! Hee. I am so happy. Lots to give thanks for, this Thanksgiving. :)

Reviews appreciated!


	26. xvi: devil's advocate

**Note: **-cough- Thank you to everybody who was kind enough to review – getting me to the big 300! Thank you so much! And…uh…please forgive my long absence. XD

Happy belated 2007, y'alls!

-

twenty-six: _the devil's advocate_

Sakura is eight months and three and a half weeks pregnant, and Neji does not think he can take it any more.

He has already been struck by exactly five cases of sympathy pains, prematurely baby-proofs the entire Hyuuga compound, draws up an extensive list of names, exposes the puppy Yuki to several baby dolls, devises three different emergency drills upon what to do when Sakura goes into labor, and even finds the Haruno and Hyuuga family records in the village records.

After several evenings of detailed analysis, he creates a presentation for the increasingly fatigued Sakura. He points out that their child will have a fifty percent chance of being either gender, male or female, a seventy-five percent chance that it will inherit Neji's brown hair, a one-hundred percent chance that it will carry the Byakugan, and a thirty percent chance that it will have a natural predisposition to Sakura and Tsunade's brand of unrivalled chakra control. Also, a mere ten percent chance that it will inherit Sakura's ambidexterity.

Sakura blinks, and rests a hand on her stomach. "I love you, Neji, I really do, but you are in severe need of a hobby."

Neji stares at his wife. "I take that you wouldn't want to know the training schedules that I've composed for the child?"

The medic-nin laughs, assuming that her husband is joking, and beckons him over. Neji lacks the heart to tell her that his above statement is most certainly not in jest—and besides, he's had enough of obsessive-compulsive disorder treatment at the Konoha hospital to last him a lifetime. He sits beside Sakura, careful not to shift the bed too much, and eyes her protectively. "What is it?"

Sakura sighs softly, and rests one of her hands on her stomach. "It's a little hard to believe that in a very short time we're going to have our own little NejiSaku offspring."

Neji arches an eyebrow. "NejiSaku?"

"Naruto's thoroughly intellectual suggestion for the baby's name," Sakura replies humorously. "His reasoning is that nobody will ever mistake her—or him—for someone else's. Watch, it's going to end up with pink hair, white eyes, and become the most recognizable little thing in the village."

Neji winces at the mention of "pink hair." "And with a name like NejiSaku, it's probably going to end up with several horrible complexes and follow Uchiha Itachi's example."

"True, true," muses Sakura.

The couple lapses into silence for a while.

"Hey, Neji?" Sakura asks at last, her eyes closed.

"Mmm?"

"Are we going to be good parents?"

After a few moments of silence, Sakura opens her eyes to Neji's thoroughly incredulous gaze. "As if we could be anything _besides_ good parents," he scoffs at last. "In all modesty, we are extremely talented shinobi. All of our generation is. Tenten's a weapons specialist and Lee a taijutsu specialist; both of them were in ANBU, and they still continue to be very capable jounin, along with being good parents to little Sango and Kira."

"I agree," interjects Sakura, "but, I mean, we're not trained to be parents. From the time we were…kids, really, we've been taught to kill."

Neji exhales slowly, leaning back against the pillows. "As much as I'd love to play devil's advocate with you all night, I have to agree to an extent." His eyes drift toward his ANBU mask and katana, hanging in a corner of the expansive bedroom, and he remembers slicing through an opponent with ease, watching through disimpassioned eyes behind the mask, even as the enemy-nin's blood splattered onto his own gloved hands.

Sakura, noting the direction of his gaze, frowns worriedly. "See what I mean?"

"Yes," Neji murmurs. He tears his gaze away from his ANBU gear, instead choosing to take his wife's hands in his own. "But you shouldn't worry about it. We're not going to be the White Fang, or Uchiha Fukagu, or even Hiashi-sama. I think that we will be able to raise this child in a healthy environment." He pauses, at a momentary loss as to what to say.

Sakura takes the opportunity to smile wanly. "All the parent psychology books are wearing on you, Neji."

"Hn," Neji replies defensively. "At least I try."

"I'll give you that," the pink-haired kunoichi says with a grin. She leans against his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around her gently. "Neji?" she mumbles.

"Sakura."

"Promise me…"—she is drifting in and out of sleep now, her head nodding tiredly—"promise me that you won't freak out too much when I go into labor."

Neji stiffens. "Why?" he asks guardedly. "Sakura, are you all right? You're not having it _now, _are you?"

She cracks one eye open to glare at him. "Calm down. And no, I'm not. Just don't freak out."

"Hmph. Why would _I_, of all people, 'freak out?'"

Sakura does not reply, instead choosing to fist one hand in his robes and fall peacefully asleep.

The Hyuuga prodigy mutters grumpily to himself at his wife's lack of an answer. _Freak out, indeed. As if _I, _of all people, would go to pieces at the thought of my wife going into labor._

Neji leans across, turns out the lights, and settles down into bed, holding Sakura close.

--

Almost two weeks before Sakura is due to go into labor, she forces her husband to take a short recon mission to the Land of Waves, for both of their sakes.

Neji, in a completely out-of-character act, refuses the mission when Tsunade first assigns it to him. The Godaime Hokage had been so shocked that she dropped the mission scroll, in the process knocking over and shattering an empty sake bottle.

When Izumo and Kotetsu burst into her office a few minutes later, startled by the noise, they found Neji shaking his head disapprovingly at the scattered ivory-colored glass, while Tsunade seemed to be slumped in her chair, convinced that she had drunk way too much sake the previous night, and was in the midst of a dreadful hallucination.

When Sakura hears the news of this, she all but drags herself out of bed, down the stairs, past the barking puppy, and puts her husband out on the front doorstep, leaving him in the clutches of the smirking Naruto, Kiba, and Shikamaru.

As Neji trudges out the gates of the Hyuuga compound, he gives his home one last glance, and hopes fervently that his future child doesn't turn out as evil as Sakura.

--

Sakura wakes up a week after Neji's departure from Konoha, and lies in bed for a few minutes, just watching patterns of light flicker on the insides of her eyes. She feels a sudden decrease in her chakra, and inhales sharply, her fingers clutching the soft linen sheets.

Her chakra surges in the next minute, accompanied by a sharp, painful twinge in her stomach.

Sakura gasps, feeling her fingers relax against the sheets. The pain in her stomach does not cease, however, and—

--

The messenger hawk finds Hyuuga Neji and his three-man squad right as they are finishing their reconnaissance mission. They are approximately a day and a half's travel from Konoha, when one of Tsunade's personal messenger hawks alights on Neji's shoulder, cawing insistently.

Neji, who is _usually _on a high state of alert bordering on complete paranoia (at least, that's how Shikamaru sees it), fairly jumps out of his skin.

His gloved hands tremble slightly as he unwraps the scroll from the hawk's claws and begins to read it.

"Oy, Neji," Naruto calls, from slightly behind him. "What is it?"

"Judging from the look on his face, a step-by-step set of instructions on how to get that kunai out of his—" Kiba starts to crack, before Naruto's premature snort of laughter interrupts him.

Shikamaru, as he is keeping up with Neji, is the only one to notice the rapid change in his teammate's pallor. Neji first turns extremely red—reminiscent of that whole Curry of Life incident Tenten had once mentioned to him—and then pales drastically.

"Neji?" Shikamaru asks, narrowly avoiding sticking his foot into a bird's nest. "What's—"

Before he can even complete his query, the Hyuuga prodigy has sped up, leaping through the trees at an alarming pace. Shikamaru blinks once, shocked, and Neji is completely out of his field of vision.

Naruto and Kiba leap forward, both giving him stunned looks. "What's up with _him_?" Kiba asks, jerking his head forward.

"I have no idea," Shikamaru sighs. "So troublesome."

--

Neji makes the rest of the day-and-a-half journey to Konoha in the next three hours, in a fit of manic speed.

He upsets five bird nests, fails to adequately dodge no less than twelve overhanging branches, gets far too many splinters to be healthy, almost knocks three young chuunin on guard duty out of their tower, in the process terrifying the life out of them (Konohamaru will run back to the training grounds in the next hour, shaking and pale, and he will rant about a crazy white eyed man who almost killed his teammates in a mad dash to infiltrate the village and wreak havoc, for no less than five incoherent minutes, before Hanabi punches him and calmly informs him that that isn't an evil missing-nin, it's her cousin Neji, _dobe_.), before Neji storms the Konoha Hospital, where all havoc breaks loose.

--

When Sakura regains consciousness, she finds herself in the pristine whiteness of a hospital room and bed. Blurry faces surround her, and there is something small and warm and currently…mewing…cradled in her arms. She blinks a few times, and when her vision clears, she sees her mentor, her teacher, the Godaime Hokage grinning down at her like a loon, and—is that just her or are there tears in Tsunade's brown eyes—_Neji_, standing besides Tsunade, looking as if he has fought an entire forest and come out worse for wear. There are leaves, twigs, and assorted other things in his usually pristine brown hair, his face is all scratched up, and yet he is beaming at her (Neji, _beaming_) and looking ridiculously proud.

Then the still-groggy Sakura transfers her attention to the soft, warm weight in her arms, and finds herself confronted with a little being with a pair of huge, pearly white eyes—Neji's eyes—and a shock of bright pink hair on his small head.

"Hizashi," she murmurs, lifting her baby son in her arms and cradling his small cheek against her own. "Hello, Hizashi."

Neji has seated himself beside her without her noticing, and he is staring at their baby son, his own eyes open wide. He can't quite believe it, but he stretches his arms out and takes Hizashi, holding him close. Still not trusting himself with words, he leans across and kisses Sakura softly.

She smiles at him, and he notes how pale and tired she looks, but radiantly happy at the same time. Neji's throat has constricted in a thoroughly unpleasant way and his eyes are burning, and he is _not _going to cry…

He lifts Hizashi up to him, and kisses his soft baby cheek, before intertwining Sakura's fingers with his own.

The small family sits there for a few minutes, utterly content and peaceful and _perfect, _but then Hizashi starts to mew with hunger, Neji realizes that he might have brushed up against some poison ivy in his dash to Konoha, judging from the sudden red blotchiness of his complexion, and Sakura drifts off to sleep against Neji's shoulder.

All that aside, even years into the future, if one ever asks Hyuuga Neji what the best day in his life was, he will mention this one.

(And he has the scars to prove it.)

-

And thus, dear reviewers, is how the NejiSaku offspring Hizashi enters the world. –grin-

Reviews appreciated!


	27. xvii: bubbles, stay

**Note: **-cough- About that long absence. Yeah. I pretty much am pwned by school/real life drama. But however, now that I am a big bad high school sophomore and therefore am on summer vacation, I should have more time to devote to this series, and hopefully finishing it up. I started this chapter ages ago, but only had the time to finish it now. :)

-

twenty-seven: _bubbles; stay_

Hyuuga Hizashi's first documented usage of his Byakugan occurs when his esteemed father miscalculates the exact amount of bubble bath solution that is supposed to go into the sink, and instead of ending up with a delicate cloud of strawberry-scented, colorful orbs, receives a bathroom full of chakra-enhanced, dense, opaque bubbles that simply _will not pop. _

Hizashi only allows himself a moment of confused wailing before he gathers his one-year-old wits about him. He screws his eyes shut, initially only to shield them from the sting of the "bubbles". However, when he opens his eyes again, he sees the bathroom with a shocking clarity.

Through the thick pink haze that dominates the room, Hizashi can clearly make out the familiar form of his father, who seems to be striking out at will at the air around him. Neji assumes that he can use his Jyuuken to destroy the bubbles at a quicker rate than he would normally.

So far, this method doesn't seem to be working. And he's already narrowly avoided slipping on various sponges, dog toys, and teething rings. Neji assesses the situation, and quickly switches his plan of action to Plan B.

Forget about securing the perimeter. He just has to locate the target (a baby who should currently be in the sink, splashing warm water and playing with his rubber kunai), and evacuate the area immediately.

"Byakugan!" With that, the veins at the corners of his eyes pop out, and Neji regains full visibility. In a few quick, yet careful, strides, he crosses the bathroom, scoops his son out of the sink, and dashes to the door.

Neji breathes a sigh of relief as he escapes the now unpleasantly warm and soggy bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him, precariously cradling Hizashi in the other arm.

He is interrupted by a sudden, unpleasant bop to his left eyebrow. Neji looks up, cross-eyed, to find himself confronted with a glare very similar to his own.

…Very similar to his own. Down to the veins that surround the pearly white eyes.

_Hizashi's first Byakugan. _

While Neji's mind is still processing this momentous fact, the baby whacks him again, this time on the other eyebrow, wailing insistently. His rubber kunai toy has been left in the bathroom, much to his displeasure.

Somewhat dazed, the dripping and strawberry-scented ANBU Captain sets his son in the nearby high chair. Hizashi pounds the small table a few times before seeming to realize that he and his kunai are not going to be reunited anytime soon. He redirects his negative energy elsewhere, and begins to chew the loose edge of fabric near the left arm of the chair.

As he does so, the veins around his eyes become less pronounced, and gradually fade away completely, leaving a quite normal-looking—as normal-looking as you could be with pink hair and white eyes, anyway—Hizashi.

Neji, for all his precise knowledge of Hyuuga family tradition, is at a complete loss. Part of him wants to sit down on the corner of the bed and quietly, silently shed a few tears (Hyuuga men do not _sniffle_ or _sob,_ contrary to Sakura's constant teasing) at the pride he feels at seeing his child—his firstborn, the pride of the clan—reach this first milestone of Hyuuga development.

--

When Sakura comes home from work about half an hour later, she is faced with a slightly strange scene. Hizashi appears to have torn off an entire scrap of fabric from his chair, and is now chewing it with an expression of abject happiness on his small face. Neji sits cross-legged on the bed, appearing to meditate.

"Eh…Neji?" Sakura asks cautiously.

Neji's eyes fly open, and he coughs, startled. "Hello, Sakura. Whatever you do, don't go into the bathroom."

Sakura raises an eyebrow, and chooses to ignore her husband's last, ominous statement, in favor of her amazingly accurate kunoichi intuition. "You seem a tad…preoccupied."

A few moments of silence. "Ah, he used his bloodline limit for the first time today," Neji murmured. "I was just thinking about it."

Hizashi has tired of chewing on his poor excuse for a kunai substitute, and is now dozing off against the arm of his high chair. His mother looks at him, a faint expression of awe in her green eyes. "But he's so young."

"The youngest so far in family history," acknowledges Neji. "I was a month older than him at my first activation."

The pink-haired medic-nin sits down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. "It's a pretty momentous event, isn't it?"

"Mmm. It was just a little strange, that's all," he admits. "Looking at our baby and seeing the first glimpses of the great person and shinobi he's destined to become. I don't think I was really ready for it yet."

Sakura nods. "I understand."

The couple falls into a comfortable silence, both of them watching Hizashi doze, and immersed in their own ponderings about the future. After a while, Sakura exhales softly and slips out of Neji's light grasp, throwing her medic coat in the corner and tugging her hair free of her ponytail.

Neji shakes himself out of his train of thought. "Wait! Where are you going?"

Sakura turns and gives him a puzzled look. "The bathroom?"

All philosophical thoughts are thrown out of the window of Neji's mind, as well as his composed physical and emotional state. "No! You can't – I'm not sure if the perimeter is secure yet."

If her expression had been merely puzzled before, it now crosses the line into thoroughly confused. "Neji? I think the excitement might be too much for you; remind me to take your temperature after I take my—"

At this point, her words are cut off, and are replaced by a sudden shriek and a thud.

"…I warned you," Neji says to the empty bedroom.

About a minute later, a thoroughly irate Sakura fairly claws her way out of the bathroom, now covered in pink bubble scum. She closes and locks the door very, very carefully, as if she's sealing a demon inside, rather than overactive bubble bath solution, before leaning against it and then sliding to the floor wordlessly, her eyes still closed. Eventually, when she cracks her eyes open, she is confronted with a faintly amused Neji, staring at her with a very clear _I-told-you-so_ expression on his face.

Sakura takes a deep, shaky breath, and wipes the bubble solution from her face. "If my beautiful, innocent baby boy _ever_ turns out like you—"

"—Remind you to hurt me, I know," Neji completes with a wry smile. He walks over and holds his hand out to Sakura, pulling her up gently. "Shall we go and clean off the bubble scum? Don't worry; it's a simple and relatively painless process."

"As long as you're sure," Sakura replies dryly. As they're at the door, she turns back toward the still-sleeping Hizashi. "Is it alright to leave him?"

"He can stay," Neji says, his eyes softening. "And reflect upon his eventual destiny, if he chooses to do so."

"…Or he can blow sleep bubbles and dream about his toy kunai."

"Right. Or that."

-

Any reviews (or lengthy diatribes about the lateness of this installment and how the author should be beaten with a burning baby), would be greatly appreciated.

XD


	28. xviii: aesthesiogen

**Note: **Thank you so much to everybody who reviewed. :)

-

twenty-eight: _aesthesiogen _

_(aesthesiogen: something producing sensation; a stimulus or suggestion producing a sensory effect. hence, the five senses of NejiSaku.)_

-

_i. sight._

¤ Neji will never admit it to _anybody, _but in his most vulnerable moments, when he's lying half-dead on a hospital bed, his visual cortex only has to register the faintest blur of pink against the edges of his fading consciousness, before he can peacefully surrender himself to the darkness, with the knowledge that he is in safe hands.

¤ Neji prides himself on being stoic, grounded, practical, and down-to-earth, but the first time they _really _go out on a date, outside of the typical himself-lying-pathetically-in-hospital scenario, Sakura is wearing a Chinese-style dress, pale pink and embroidered with gold, and the sight of her is enough to take his breath away.

¤ Another thing Neji doesn't think he will ever admit to anybody: the fact that Haruno Sakura, six inches shorter than him, pink-haired, medic-nin, _girl_, sometimes scares him more than the thought of facing a score of highly dangerous missing-nin. There are times when seeing her, whether she's glowering at him, cracking her knuckles in a _very _menacing fashion, killing S-ranked Akatsuki, or sitting next to him on the floor of his bedroom chattering innocently about summer and hair, all while he feels the heavy weight of the small jewelry box in his pocket – is, frankly, enough to make him wish that he is somewhere _far_ away, preferably fighting an enemy.

(Then she smiles, and it all seems to be worth it. Neji despairs.)

¤ Sometimes Sakura likes to simply sit and watch Neji train. He is the very _embodiment _of deadly grace, as well as magnificently controlled power. At first, her very blood seems to burn with jealousy at his seemingly effortless skill, but that feeling quickly fades, leaving her to just sit and admire _him, _not the prodigy ANBU Captain, but just…just breathtaking Neji.

¤ When things sometimes feel their darkest, looking at him gives her hope.

_ii. taste._

¤ Best kept secret of Konoha: Hyuuga Neji is an excellent cook. He has been known to whip up entire five-course dinners for the Hyuuga clan on a whim, as well as catering to his team's diverse dietary likes and dislikes. He doesn't get to cook much after making chuunin and jounin, however, due to the demands of his career. Unfortunately, the cooking gets reserved for rare nights of rest and relaxation, or when Hiashi-sama is particularly stressed, and demands a cheesecake.

¤ Contrary to popular belief, Sakura cannot cook to save her own life. Years of being exposed to Naruto have taught her how to make a mean bowl of ramen, though, but that is the extent of her cooking skills. All her other attempts at actual _meals _end in charred cinders, heartbreak, and tears.

¤ When Neji suggests staying in on their third date, and surprises Sakura by cooking them both an intricate and _delicious _dinner comprised of all her favorite dishes, Sakura almost cries with the boundless joy. Amusingly enough, this is the first time she consciously acknowledges that Hyuuga Neji just _might _be the most perfect and amazing man ever.

¤ Then Neji completely ruins it by declaring that he bought watermelon ice cream for dessert. Sakura blinks, and tells him that vanilla and strawberry swirl is far by the most superior choice. This discussion descends into a full-on argument, and Sakura ends up flinging a spoonful of ice cream at Neji, in a fit of temper.

Neji catches it on his tongue.

Sakura blinks.

Neji smirks.

¤ Sakura learns to like watermelon ice cream that night.

¤ After they are married, Neji begins the arduous task of teaching Sakura how to cook. There is a lot of destruction involved, but at long last, Sakura finally produces an independently made dish of her own: fresh tomato soup.

Neji takes the first spoonful, bracing himself.

…The tomato soup tastes like _chicken._

When Neji opens his eyes, Sakura is still gazing at him, a hopeful expression in her green eyes. Neji just smiles, and wonders why he still continues to be surprised.

_iii. smell._

¤ The evening of the fateful day when he decides to tell Sakura that he truly loves her, Neji discovers something completely alarming.

The Hyuuga compound is completely void of cologne.

Desperation leads him to show up at Sakura's doorstep at seven-thirty sharp, nevertheless…smelling of jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, and honeysuckle. Neji curses the fact that Hinata insists on wearing such _girly _scents.

In reflection, things could have gone much, much worse. Instead, in response to his confession, Sakura only smirks and tells him that she loves him, too – despite the fact that he insists on wearing girly perfumes.

(She teases him about it for years to come.)

(Neji firmly denies and will continue to deny the fact that, after they are married, he sometimes has been known to drift out of the Hyuuga compound smelling like Sakura's lavender perfume.)

(Kiba's nose finds this to the contrary, though, and when he dares to point it out, he ends up collapsing into a wobbly mess on the floor, his tenketsu shut down, as Sakura very firmly hauls Neji away, ignoring her husband's insistence that he just uses the scent because he finds it _relaxing, _dammit.)

¤ When Sakura returns from missions, the first thing she does is return to the Hyuuga compound, find her husband in whatever recess he is drifting about in, and wrap him in a rib-crushing hug. His returning grip is strong enough to sweep her feet off the ground, and she buries her face in his long chocolate-colored hair and inhales deeply, because Neji always smells of home.

_iv. sound._

¤ The first thing Neji usually hears after regaining consciousness in his oh-so-lovely hospital bed after his latest life-threatening injury is Sakura's customary tirade of how he needs to take care of himself, learn his limits, how very lucky he is to be alive, et cetera…

Sakura would bang her head against a rock in frustration if she knew that during the majority of these lectures, Neji simply tunes her words out, listens to the sound of her voice, and reflects on how very nice it is to be alive.

¤ If Neji listened harder, though, he would hear that every word that Sakura speaks is out of the deepest worry for his personal well-being, in a way that might go a little bit further than simply medic-nin to patient…

¤ Sometimes Neji lies in bed and listens to the sound of Hizashi's soft breathing and Sakura's quiet mumblings in her sleep, and he just smiles with quiet happiness.

_v. touch._

¤ Sakura's hands, coated with the green glow of her chakra, are soothing in a conventional way. When she heals him, he truly _relaxes, _for maybe the first time in his life. Neji looks at those hands, and remembers the times he has seen them reduce rock walls to so much dust and powder, or punch men through five concrete walls. And now, they are carefully regenerating damaged muscle and tissue, with all the practiced gentleness and precision of a finely trained medic-nin.

Times like this, Neji reflects on the true nature of power.

¤ Whenever Sakura has needed it most, Neji has given her strength.

Times like tonight, when he is dressed in his ANBU gear and she, wearing the typical clothes of a capable field medic, and they are standing together on the roof of the ANBU building, reflecting over what hardship they are going to face tomorrow, when the sun rises and they are sent on their latest S-rank mission, Neji has only to take Sakura's hand, and they face the gates of Konoha together, knowing that, with one another, they have enough strength to face whatever trials tomorrow may bring.

-

Oh, I have to say, this was crazy fun to write. XD

Reviews appreciated!

(Also, by the way. I have a new fic up here, my Tenten character study _Carpe Diem. _It's another project that's really near and dear to my heart, almost as much as this is. If any of you would be kind enough to read and drop a comment, it would be extremely awesome of you. :D)


	29. xix: affaire de coeur

**Note:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed. :)

-

twenty-nine: affaire de coeur.

(_fifty steps to falling in love.)_

_-_

**Ring**

Their first real interaction outside of the hospital examination room is the battle arena of the chuunin exams. Neji and Sakura regard each other warily, and there is a healthy respect for each of the others' abilities reflected in their eyes. They pace a complete ring around Shiranui Genma, watching, waiting, until Sakura springs forward, one of her chakra-enhanced punches missing Neji's jaw by an inch.

He leaps out of the way, into the Hyuuga fighting stance, and she lands in front of him, bringing her fists up into a defensive guard.

The battle has begun.

**Hero**

Sakura is one of the first people to know that Neji passed his jounin exams. Tsunade-sama had let it slip in passing, while turning him over to Sakura in order to have his post-match wounds healed up.

As she enters, Neji is sitting with his legs crossed on the hospital bed. He glances up wearily at her, and the action causes a searing pain in his neck. His hand makes it halfway there before he forces it back down, out of pride.

Sakura heals him in silence, perhaps because she finds it necessary to tranquilize him in order to sort out the trauma that the nerves in his neck experienced. She watches the Hyuuga prodigy as he sleeps, his long, dark hair fanning out on the pillows just like any girl, and, _hell,_ Neji-with-the-girly-hair is a jounin. An elite. One of the best shinobi she knows.

She frowns, continues to knead the back of his neck, and resolves to work harder.

(Everybody assumes that her efforts were all for Naruto and Sasuke. She only ever tells one person of the role that Neji had to play in it, and that is Neji himself, on the night before their wedding. He blinks rapidly and the noodles fall from his chopsticks back into the elaborate porcelain bowl. Sakura laughs.)

**Memory**

Neji has woken up in a hospital bed to find Sakura leaning over him, fixing whatever dreadful injuries he has sustained _this_ time, that the memory becomes permanently ingrained in his mind. Even when he wakes up in his own bed, he almost expects to feel her small hands on his chest, the warmth of her chakra against him, and the sweet smell of her shampoo gently permeating the air.

It takes almost seven years for this dream to become a reality.

**Box**

Neji is having a staring contest with the diamond ring in the far left enclosure of the jewelry store.

The diamond ring with its red velvet box, with the emblem of Konoha embossed in it in gold.

Neji loses the staring contest.

He walks home an hour after that, the box weighing heavily in his kunai pouch.

It is undoubtedly the scariest box he has ever encountered in his life.

**Run**

If there's one thing that Neji absolutely hates, it is flagrant disobedience from the shinobi under his command.

"Damn it, Sakura, _run!_" he yells, his shell of composure slipping, as it often does under the threat of impending death.

Sakura glances over at him and settles into a fighting stance. The fact that she is unarmed and shortly to be facing fifty enemy shinobi doesn't seem to bother her at all. "Not if it means leaving you."

**Hurricane**

"Did I ever thank you?" he asks, over the howl of the roaring wind.

Sakura tilts her head upwards, feeling the raindrops splatter on her face. "You never had to."

**Wings**

Neji finds an injured bird on the street once. He promptly finds his way to Haruno Sakura's apartment, disregarding the fact that it is eleven o' clock at night, and insists that she help him heal the bird.

Sakura is groggy and dressed in pajamas that have little pink strawberries on them, and is in no mood to heal a bird. However, she sees the look of determination in Neji's eyes, and deduces correctly that he will not take no for an answer.

It is one o' clock in the morning by the time they have the bird's wing set in a tiny splint, and have a makeshift nest for him in Sakura's only potted plant.

"So." Sakura says.

"So." Neji rubs his eyes. Normally he wouldn't be caught dead utilizing such a mundane retort, but the two solid hours of trying to make the bird as comfortable as possible have taken its toll on him.

"…I have ice cream."

"Ice cream sounds pleasant right now, thanks."

Neji and Sakura eat a pint of vanilla ice cream each, before falling asleep on her couch.

The next morning, Neji wakes up to see Hatake Kakashi sitting on the armchair across from him, a look of murderous intent emanating from his single visible eye. For a second Neji wonders why, and then he remembers that he is asleep with the Copy Ninja's sole female student in her strawberry-decorated pajamas. On her couch. Said female student is still curled up against Neji's shoulder, sleeping contentedly.

The thick amount of paperwork that Kakashi had brought to deliver from the Hokage lies forgotten on the table.

Neji swallows.

Kakashi smiles. His eye crinkles up into a half-moon smiley expression. It is the most frightening thing that Neji has seen in recent memory.

"Take a walk with me, Neji-kun?" he inquires pleasantly.

Later that afternoon, Hatake Kakashi and Hyuuga Neji are both taken to the hospital for severe injuries. Sakura is the head of their ward, and she chastises the both of them at length.

They're not talking.

Even years later, Neji and Kakashi stubbornly silent about that particular event. It's a cause for amusement among every jounin in Konoha.

**Cold**

The Hyuuga compound tends to get rather chilly during winter. It is fortunate that Sakura, who never did like cold weather, always has Neji at hand to prevent her from getting _too_ cold. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

**Red**

In his life as a shinobi, Neji had always associated the color of red with blood and death.

When he sees Sakura in her wedding kimono, he is forced to use his extraordinary Hyuuga willpower to keep his jaw from falling to the ground.

From that day on, in the life of Neji, red has a much more positive connotation.

**Drink**

Neji is _determined_ to show her and the rest of them - stupid, stupid Naruto - that his tolerance for the Curry of Life has _improved, _not deteriorated, over the years, dammit.

So it really doesn't help that his face is slowly going from red to purple as he shovels yet another spoonful down his mouth, all the while eyeing the nearest glass of water with an expression of abject longing (which on his face, translates to a slight squint of the outer corner of his right eye).

As he begins to feel his internal organs slowly shrivel, Sakura takes pity on him. Before he knows what is happening, he feels the cool glass against his mouth.

"Drink, you idiot! You know better than to go against _Naruto_ in an eating contest-"

Neji feels the icy, blessed relief slide up to meet his withered tongue.

This is one of many times he thinks that he first fell in love with her.

**Midnight**

"It's midnight and this time you don't have an injured bird in the palm of your hand. What are you doing here?"

Nobody ever accused Sakura of being perfectly polite when her beauty sleep is interrupted.

Neji shrugs. "I was in the mood for ice cream."

Sakura crosses her arms and glares. "That excuse is _shit,_ Hyuuga."

Neji gives her a look. "The truth is that I am alone and desolate and am aching for your company, which is like a healing salve to my damaged, bruised soul."

Sakura sniffs and holds the door open. "You're an awful liar. Come in."

Neji smirks and steps inside. "You have no idea."

**Temptation**

Neji is thoroughly dismayed the first time that he sees Sakura in one of the medics' ANBU uniforms.

For hell's sake, it looks like _skintight black leather._ And she's just an innocent little medic accompanying their team because the Hokage had deemed it too dangerous to be undertaken without one.

Times like this, Neji hates life.

Sakura straps the katana across her back, arching her chest a tiny bit to do so.

He is sure that somewhere, somehow, the Godaime Hokage is having a laugh at his expense.

**View**

Sakura's optimism befuddles Neji a little bit. His outlook on life has brightened somewhat, thanks to Naruto's influence, but…still. He is hardly going to be skipping about Konoha, singing bright tunes and smiling to random passers-by in fits of goodwill.

Well. It's not like Sakura skips about Konoha. He's never seen her sing a bright tune. The smiling to random passers-by in fits of goodwill - she has that covered, though.

Neji tries to give it a try.

The first time he smiles at a group of random genin, walking around Konoha on their way back from the Academy, they all exchange frightened glances and dissolve into noisy tears.

When Neji relays this story to Sakura, she laughs, pats him on the head, and tells him that he just needs a little practice.

Neji's eye twitches.

Love or not, he is _so _not going to be helping any innocent old woman cross the street.

**Music**

Sakura always figured that, being all well-bred and noble and all that, Neji would enjoy listening to well-bred and noble music.

When they infiltrate a symphony orchestra for the purposes of a mission, as innocent members of the audience, Neji falls asleep halfway through the first piece. He snores. Softly. And in a very well-bred manner. But still. _Snores._

Neji wakes up, mortified, to the sight of Sakura smirking at him in a decidedly un-Sakura-like way.

She never lets him forget it.

**Silk**

Neji's hair is like silk between her fingers. Sakura could just _die _with all the envy. She tells him so.

The next day, Neji gives her a bottle of the trademark, Hyuuga-patented, secretly brewed, special shampoo and conditioner that all clan members use.

Sakura laughs and hugs him.

Neji wonders if she knows that it's practically tantamount to a marriage proposal.

**Cover**

"Say, Neji-san, you appear to have fallen victim to my Whirlwind more often than usual this month," Lee says, kneeling down to sit beside his teammate. His eyes are round with worry. "Are you sure you're quite all right?"

Tenten feels Neji's ribs, where the kick had connected, tentatively. "I don't think you've got any fractures, Neji."

"…My ribs feel a little stiff. And there's a stabbing pain in the third one down to the left. I think that I am in need of urgent medical attention."

Tenten gives him an _I know what you're up to _kind of mischievous look. "If you're so very sure, I'm sure that the medics at the hospital would be able to help you out."

Neji stands up before she can go off on her _a medic's gentle touch _tangent. "I'll leave, then."

Lee looks greatly remorseful. "I apologize, Neji-san!"

Tenten looks like she is working very hard to restrain her laughter.

Neji glares. "Shut up."

**Promise**

Whenever Neji or Sakura leaves for a mission, they tell the other how much they love them.

They never promise to be back in two days, or tomorrow, or next week.

They don't believe in making promises they might not always be able to keep.

**Dream**

Once, Sakura confesses to Neji that she wouldn't have thought she would marry him, not even in her wildest dreams.

Neji remembers the mornings of waking up and almost feeling as if she was there beside him. "I would."

**Candle**

Once a year in Konoha, they light candles for the dead. Sakura always prays that she will never have to light one for Neji, and he does the same for her.

**Talent**

Neji has a strong pride in his own abilities, but he would rather die than tell Sakura that there are some times when he envies hers.

**Silence**

Even the silence between them is comfortable, bridged by the comforting warmth of their fingers intertwined together and their breath mingling in the air.

**Journey**

It took Neji three years to make jounin.

It took Sakura five.

They spent seven years trying to complete their journey together.

**Fire**

"The will of fire burns strong in both of you." Tsunade inclines her head over the couple, and an unusually gentle smile touches her face. "I couldn't be prouder."

**Strength**

Her chakra-enhanced, ground-splitting, earthquake-creating punches aside, and despite his ability to kill with a single gentle touch, Neji and Sakura draw strength from each other.

**Mask**

Sakura's small hands trace the contours of his new ANBU mask, and she smiles up at him, a look of true pride in her eyes. "I'm so happy for you, Neji," she says sincerely.

At that moment, Neji thinks that life couldn't get any better.

"…But what is this thing, anyway? It looks like some kind of a lizard."

Neji refuses to talk to her for three days.

**Ice**

Neji and Sakura refuse to call their sitting-on-Sakura's-couch-at-midnight-and-eating-ice-cream encounters dates.

**Fall**

The first red-touched leaf spirals from the tree to land gently on Neji's sepia-colored hair, and Sakura stands on the tips of her toes to pluck it out. She smiles. "Fall."

**Forgotten**

Neji firmly denies the fact that he is obsessive, but he's never forgotten a single thing she's said to him - including the rants about how he should take his health more seriously.

**Dance**

Despite his astonishing grace on the battlefield, Neji displays a surprising propensity for stepping on her feet when they dance at the annual ANBU Ball. Sakura thinks it's cute. Neji just doesn't want to tell her that the red cocktail dress is just very, _very_ distracting.

**Body**

The first time Sakura orders Neji to strip from the waist up for a medical examination is when she is fifteen and he is sixteen.

Sakura spends the entire time trying not to blush and hating hormones, while Neji tries determinedly not to wonder if his chest is highly defined enough to be attractive.

**Sacred**

Despite the fact that it is an emergency healing and he is in danger of suffering injuries related to severe blood loss, Neji tries to resist Sakura's act of pouring her own chakra into him, in an attempt to close the wound. She hits him on the head just enough to stop the struggling, tells him that this is no time for chivalry, and he can do nothing but watch as her precious chakra mingles with his blood.

**Farewells**

"I don't trust you enough to leave you," she tells him, observing the way his shoulder is healing.

"You don't exactly have a choice," he points out.

She tells him that's the worst part of being a medic.

He takes extra care on the mission.

**World**

Sakura's hand touches the side of his cheek gently. "All the enemy shinobi in the world couldn't make me leave you."

Neji swallows and tries to ignore the burning in his eyes.

**Formal**

Sakura dons a kimono in preparation for her mission, to impersonate the daughter of an important lord. Her hair hasn't been dyed yet, and she is still the Sakura he knows for the moment, with her pink hair clashing horribly with the deep purple of her kimono. For all intents and purposes, he is her fiancé for the duration of the impersonation.

He is in his formal Hyuuga robes and she is in her beautiful kimono, and for a second, he is reminded painfully of seeing his mother and father together when he had been very young, despite the fact that his mother's hair had been very dark, and her eyes, white.

"Anything wrong?"

She touches his arm, gently, worried, and he shakes his head. "Nothing."

**Fever**

Sakura had never anticipated that she would get _sunburn_ while walking between Suna and Konoha in the middle of summer while wearing a tank top, and that leaves Neji slathering lotion on her very red and relatively exposed skin.

Sakura is the one with the sunburn.

So why is _he_ feeling so hot?

**Laugh**

The first time Neji laughs, outright _laughs_, in a way that isn't menacing or downright creepy, Sakura stares at him for a minute straight as she tries to figure out what the _hell_ he's doing.

A very awkward moment ensues when Sakura tries to jump on him and perform the Heimlich maneuver. Neji looks confused. "I just found your story regarding Naruto and the irate chipmunks amusing."

Sakura blinks. "Oh. I thought you were choking."

"It always happens," Neji says in a long-suffering voice.

"Well, maybe you should laugh more often. Just so that it doesn't happen so frequently."

"Hn. The idea bears consideration."

**Lies**

"Oh no. This is not happening. You're delusional. I am not falling in love with _him._"

Ino gives her a disbelieving look. "Of course you're not."

"_Ino!_ I'm your best friend; you _have_ to believe me!"

Ino raises her hands disarmingly. "I believe you, Sakura. You're not in love with Neji just like you don't dream of him, shirtless, every night, just like you don't so thoroughly enjoy your medic-nin privileges when _Neji_ is involved, especially when you have to tell him to strip down so you can get a sight of that highly defined chest and the way his long hair drapes over those godly shoulders of his-"

Sakura collapses upon the table, her face as bright red as a tomato.

"Lies." she says in a muffled voice. "All. Lies."

Ino smirks. There are _so _many benefits to being a best friend. (And the Shitenshin no Jutsu doesn't _not_ help, either.)

**Forever**

Contrary to popular belief, fate didn't tell Neji that Sakura was the one he loved.

…Everything else did.

**Overwhelmed**

The day Sakura forces Neji to do something that he had _never_, ever done before and _never, _ever intended to do is the day that everybody in Konoha finally realizes that, once and for all, the cute little pink-haired medic-nin has the greatest prodigy to come out of the Hyuuga clan completely whipped.

("I am not taking a vacation, woman! _Vacations_ are for lesser shinobi!"

"_Bullshit, _Hyuuga, you're coming out of this office if I have to drag you out myself!"

Tsunade watches in amusement as her student grabs Neji by the arm and forcibly exits him from her office.

The resulting screaming match, however, she can still hear, even when the couple is two flights down.

"I don't care if I'm on _vacation,_ I'm still not going to the dratted, infernal beach!")

Tsunade can't help but feel a little cheated. If all of her cases of overwork and forced vacation were _this_ entertaining, she would be a much happier woman.

**Whisper**

"I think she _likes _you, Neji nii-san," Hanabi whispers into his ear after the latest visitor to the Hyuuga compound is safely out of earshot, her pink mane of hair slowly fading into the distance.

Neji chokes on his tea.

**Wait**

Neji sits inside the parlor of the compound, Hizashi sleeping in his arms. The sky is dark outside the window, and drops of rain splatter against the glass. His knuckles are white from how tightly they clutch the baby's blankets, the only outward signs that belay his anxiousness.

He waits.

**Talk**

Sometimes talking to Neji can be just a tad frustrating.

It's not that he's stupid. Far from it. As a matter of fact, he's so damned intelligent that he thinks that he's right _all the time._

Maybe her masochistic tendencies are resurfacing, but she likes to talk to him anyway. It's a constant intellectual challenge, and it does more for keeping her on her toes than almost anything else does.

**Search**

Sakura had heard the old adage, "You find someone special when you're not looking for them," several times before.

…Actually, more like several hundred.

She scoffed at it when she was young.

But then, when she walked into the hospital room to see the newly-minted jounin Neji suffering from a serious neck sprain, she hadn't expected to find her soulmate.

**Hope**

Neji is probably one of the most self-confident shinobi in Konoha.

And yet, some compartment of his personality, deep down inside him, is blubbering in fear and hoping that she likes him. _Wanting _her to like him. With every fiber of his being.

**Eclipse**

It just so happens that she has to realize that she loves him during the middle of a highly violent battle. It's just the two of them against fifty enemy shinobi, and they probably might not make it out of this alive.

She sees Neji spin and the tips of his fingers make contact with the man he was locked in battle with, and the enemy crumples to the ground in a lifeless heap.

Sakura is splattered in blood and her eyes make contact with his, and suddenly, she has difficulty remembering a time when she has not loved him.

**Gravity**

It's not a gravitational pull or anything, but standing side-by-side with her feels _right._

**Highway**

It has been a long road to where they are now, one paved by confusion; moments of frustration, and healthy amounts of denial aside, Sakura wouldn't trade it for the world.

**Unknown**

She stands, surrounded by the rest of the members of her Rookie Nine, suddenly thrust into a world that is much larger and more unfamiliar. Her green eyes catalogue the other, older, shinobi in the room, by the degree of unfriendliness on their faces and the emblem on their forehead protectors.

Sakura notices three others, less unknown than the rest. Team Gai. Her eyes pass over the boy in the green spandex, who had actually beat Sasuke, the familiar-looking girl with the two buns on her head - _Tenten_, the name pops up into her mind - and another one, a boy she feels she should know but doesn't really remember, with long, chestnut-colored hair and white eyes. His gaze flickers over her, before settling somewhere around Sasuke.

Her gaze lingers a little longer, before she looks away and crosses her arms, and thinks nothing more of it.

**Lock**

Sakura firmly denied the fact that she kept her heart under lock and key. It was one of the many things she denied that was actually very true.

Neji was the only one who happened to be skilled enough to make her forget that.

**Breathe **

Sakura's arms wrap tightly around his shoulders and his, around her waist, and they exhale softly, their soft sigh of contentment mingling in the air.

-

Reviews appreciated!

Also, a note - this fic was written for the 30romances community on livejournal. Which means that, officially, the next chapter will be the **final** one.


	30. xxx: memory, photograph

**Note: **Thank you so much to everybody who reviewed:)

-

_thirty: memory; photograph._

-

It is a direct contrast to the personality of the Rokudaime Hokage that there are only three framed pictures in his office.

One of them hangs above an elaborately designed, ornamental ramen bowl. It is old, battered, slightly yellowed with age, and the glass covering the photograph is smudged with decades' worth of fingerprints. Hatake Kakashi is standing behind his three students, his arms crossed and a vaguely satisfied expression on what is visible of his face. Sasuke glares off moodily into the distance, his arms crossed and generally looking the epitome of twelve-year-old coolness, Naruto glares at Sasuke, obviously envious of all the coolness, and between the both of them, the eye of the storm, Haruno Sakura smiles innocently into the lens of the camera. Her eyes are closed, mid-blink, but the expression of mingling enthusiasm and joy is unmistakable – and contagious.

The picture next to the window is much more recent, and evocative of less bittersweet memories. Naruto is wearing the Hokage's robes and hat for the first time, his face glowing and radiant, split with one of the biggest smiles he has ever worn. His eyes glint mischief at the camera, as he holds up a peace sign, ever irrepressible. In a vague contrast to the previous snapshot, he is surrounded by what can most accurately be described as a _mob _of people, all as overjoyed as he is. His fiancée's head is resting on his shoulder as she smiles shyly at him, even as Neji has been captured on film looking vaguely nauseated at the mere _thought_ of public displays of affection between his younger cousin and Naruto. Sakura's arms are wrapped around Naruto and Hinata both as she beams with pride too great to be put into words.

(The memory still makes Naruto grin.)

The last picture is the only one on his desk, and it is the one nearest to the picture of the original Team Seven, despite having only one member in common. She is immediately recognizable, despite the decades separating the first photograph from this one. Her hair is as vividly pink as ever, and even though her face has a newfound maturity – brought on by assuming the role of the most accomplished medic-nin the Village Hidden In The Leaves has ever seen, in the face of Tsunade's retirement – the true happiness and contentment of her smile has never faded in the years that have passed. She wears (highly fashionable, she insists) glasses, now, her eyes weakened from years and years of poring over complex medical scrolls. They do nothing to dull the sparkle in those familiar green eyes.

An equally familiar face stands by her side, his arm wrapped gently around her waist. The Neji in this picture is not one that Naruto would ever have dreamed of encountering in his early days as a genin. That Neji did not know how to eat ice cream or how not to smirk, where this one holds the remnants of a large watermelon swirl ice cream cone in his free hand, as he shares an actual, sincere, smile with whoever may be viewing the photograph – a smile usually reserved for his closest friends, his beloved wife, and his children. He favors his right leg more nowadays, and has a slight limp, the result of a war wound too severe to ever be properly fixed. In a marked change from the days of old, his legendary Hyuuga pride _does_ allow him to lean slightly on Sakura for support when they walk through the village together, a fact that Naruto will probably never stop teasing him about.

The remaining three individuals of the photograph all share remarkable features that, arguably, make them some of Konoha's most distinguishable persons. The oldest boy, fifteen years old, stands dutifully at his mother's elbow, holding his twelve-year-old little sister's hand gently. Hyuuga Hizashi is the spitting image of his father at that age, albeit with his mother's tendency to smile easily. But then, Neji didn't have naturally bubblegum pink hair dyed chocolate brown, either. Hizashi's pink roots are _always _extremely visible, much to his mortification. That hasn't seemed to hold him back, though, and he is slated to take his jounin exams as soon as he turns sixteen, later that summer.

Hyuuga Miyazaki, in contrast, proudly sports her shoulder-length pink hair as readily as she does her new Konoha headband, which is tied securely around her forehead. In an amusing parallel to her mother's first picture as a genin, the camera has caught her in the process of blinking, although she is obviously as overjoyed and excited about the beginnings of her life as a shinobi as Sakura was. To both parents' surprise, Miyazaki shows astonishing proficiency not for medical chakra control, but in the usage of her Byakugan – she seems to have decided to leave following in Sakura's footsteps to Hizashi, who undoubtedly will dispel the old notion that men make substandard medic-nin.

The youngest member of the family stands between his parents and siblings, grinning up at the camera in what Neji dubs, with a very _loving _sense of horror, as a decidedly Naruto-like fashion. Doubtless it comes after spending so much time tagging along with his adoring godfather. Seven-year-old Isaru's goggles are pushed high on his forehead, holding back his somewhat shaggy and not yet dyed pink hair. To the shock of the Hyuuga clan at large, Isaru has declared that he wants to _keep _it pink, just because it makes him unique.

Sakura is proud.

Neji despairs, but takes consolation in the fact that at least Isaru doesn't wear orange.

Naruto calls them his favorite family – with the exception of his own, of course. The Uzumakis and the Hyuugas go out for ramen together at least once a week. The picture is the first thing he sees when he comes to his office in the morning and the last thing he sees when he packs up his things to go home for the night. He takes a look around the photographs of the room and he sees the very beginning of their lives, so many, many years ago. Through those three photographs, he sees people and relationships grow and mature, like uncooked strands of noodles into the beauty of a full, delicious bowl of ramen.

The Rokudaime Hokage stands up from his desk and stretches luxuriantly. He checks the time and gathers his things. Doubtlessly Neji has already left the ANBU Tactical Commander's office and headed down to Ichiraku, along with Sakura, whose shift should have ended half an hour ago. Naruto will pick up Hinata, probably worn out from the day's teaching, and their children, from the Academy on their way to the old and beloved ramen stand, where Hizashi, Miyazaki, and Isaru are waiting.

When he steps out of Hokage Tower, he is somewhat surprised to see Neji and Sakura waiting for him near the doors. Naruto blinks in a moment of surprise, before embracing his two old friends with his customary bouncy excitement. "Neji! Sakura! I didn't expect to see you guys out here already!"

Neji gives him a good-natured smirk, for old times' sake. "I would hate to get predictable in my old age, after all."

Naruto sniffs, placing his hands behind his head as he used to do so many times as a young genin. "Sorry to say that you've already been there and done that, old man."

Sakura interrupts their light joking with a humorous snort. "Listening to the two of you talking, it's like hearing two senile grandfathers on the verge of death, honestly!"

Neji and Naruto exchange very similar looks. Naruto takes a deep breath, deciding to be the one man enough to take the risk. "You're one to talk, obaa-san."

Sakura's eyes widen and she gives a reaction astonishingly similar to Tsunade's upon hearing Naruto's favored nickname of powerful medic kunoichi of their village. "Naruto, Hokage or not, I am going to _kill _you—"

She lunges forward, and, with a cheeky grin, Naruto does what he does best and disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving her hands closing in on nothing but empty air. Sakura fairly roars with exasperation, and Neji, an expression of distinct amusement on his features, takes her hand, pulls her back to him, and tries valiantly not to laugh.

"Don't you dare laugh," she tells him grumpily. "I'll smack the blonde brat a good one when I see him again."

Neji can't help but smile at the ensuing mental image, and he takes her hand, as she twines her fingers with his. Without further ado, they are heading down the dusty path that leads them back to the Academy, back to Ichiraku Ramen, back to the Chuunin examination stadium, back to their childhood.

Sakura's hair flutters in the light wind, a few loose strands whipping forward to tickle Neji's nose. He looks startled for a moment, but then laughs, and as they keep walking forward, their shadows lengthen and merge together in the sunset.

¤

Well, wow. I can't believe it's finally over. I've had this idea for the closing chapter and epilogue, of sorts, since I first began writing. It's great to know that, more than a year later, I've actually completed it. :)

Of course, this project wouldn't have been nearly as fulfilling to write if it hadn't been for you guys, who have been supporting me since the very beginning. I never even imagined that it would get such a favorable response – the best out of all the stuff I've written so far!

This is definitely not the last NejiSaku piece I intend to write. I don't know when I'm going to start my next venture into this pairing, but it will happen. I would like to say, to everybody who's read this fic, go out and **spread the love**! This is a totally amazing pairing with a lot of potential, which unfortunately seems to be underrepresented in fandom. Write your own NejiSaku fic. It'll be tons of fun, and the Naruto community needs more of this lovely pairing. :D (And think of the offspring! They're so very cute!)

Thank you so much for everything. I hope y'all enjoyed the last installment.

…Reviews appreciated!


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